| dc.description.abstract | The nature of the habitat depends a lot on the changes in the land use landcover of that area. It is therefore important to understand the land use and land cover changes under different scenarios and how they affect habitat quality as an ecosystem service. This work aims to assess the impacts of land use land cover changes under different scenarios that are 2000, 2010, 2020, and 2040, case study The River Rwizi Catchment area. To simulate future land use land cover, the Cellular Automata (CA) method in the TerrSet Geospatial Monitoring and Modeling System was applied, and the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model was used to determine the level of habitat quality and rarity. The cropland and built-up lands significantly increased in Rwizi Catchment’s land use types between 2000 and 2040 due to land use changes, while the grassland, shrubland waterbody, and wetland gradually decreased. By 2040, cropland will have increased to 2513.34 sq km thereby covering most of the catchment area and built-up will increase to 334.33 sq km while shrubland and grassland will have reduced to 8.64 sq km and 75.84 sq km respectively. The proportion of areas with poor quality habitats and low rarity is high significantly due to human activities that cause change with areas of high habitat degradation in the central catchment region. This, therefore, implies a reduction in the habitat quality of the catchment area since suitable areas will be converted to cropland and built up. The results can therefore support policy-makers by assessing the impact of future land use land cover changes on the habitat quality of the catchment hence formulating strategies to address the changes. | en_US |
