Assessing the underlying drivers of change over two decades of land use and land cover dynamics along the Standard Gauge Railway corridor, Kenya
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Sang, Catherine C
Olago, Daniel O
Nyumba, Tobias O
Marchant, Robert A
Thorn, Jessica PR
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Land cover has been modified by anthropogenic activities for thousands of years, although the speed of change has increased in recent decades, particularly driven by socio-economic development. The development of transport infrastructure can accelerate land use land cover change, resulting in impacts on natural resources such as water, biodiversity, and food production. To understand the interaction between land cover and social–ecological drivers, changing land cover patterns and drivers of change must be identified and quantified. This study documents land cover dynamics along the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) corridor in Kenya and evaluates the underlying drivers of this change from 2000 to 2019. The study utilised GIS and remote sensing techniques to assess the land use and land cover changes along the SGR corridor, while correlational and regression analyses were used to evaluate various drivers of the changes. Results showed that built-up areas, bare lands, water bodies, croplands and forests increased by 144.39%, 74.73%, 74.42%, 9.32% and 4.85%, respectively, while wetlands, grasslands and shrub lands reduced by 98.54%, 67.00% and 33.86%, respectively. The underlying drivers responsible for these land use and land cover dynamics are population growth, urbanisation, economic growth and agro-ecological factors. Such land cover changes affect environmental sustainability, and we stress the need to adequately identify and address the cumulative social and environmental impacts of mega-infrastructure projects and their interacting investments. The findings of this study provide an evidence base for the evaluation of the social–ecological impacts of the SGR and the implementation of best practices that will lead to enhanced sustainability in the development corridors in Kenya and beyond.
Date Issued
2022-05-19
Date Acceptance
2022-05-07
Citation
Sustainability, 2022, 14 (6158)
ISSN
2071-1050
Publisher
MDPI AG
Journal / Book Title
Sustainability
Volume
14
Issue
6158
Copyright Statement
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).
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Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Environmental Sciences
Environmental Studies
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
development corridors
human activities
infrastructure
landscape dynamics
sustainability
POPULATION-GROWTH
AGRICULTURAL EXPANSION
URBAN EXPANSION
ECONOMIC-GROWTH
CLIMATE-CHANGE
WATER-QUALITY
RIVER-BASIN
DEFORESTATION
BIODIVERSITY
IMPACTS
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
10
Date Publish Online
2022-05-19