Geo-Spatial Tools for Forest Cover Change and Susceptibility Analysis

Forests provide a wide variety of ecological and socio-economic benefits including; conservation of biodiversity, carbon storage, and then enhance livelihoods. But reduction in the natural forest cover due to anthropogenic and natural calamities impacted those services. Today it is an urgent environmental issue of conserving those natural forests remnants like that of the dry Afromontane of Northern Ethiopia. To quantify the level of the problem and plan proper mitigation measures, knowledge on the extent of these land use changes is very important. GIS and remote sensing techniques then provide information on the spatial and temporal cover changes at low cost and time. This book, therefore, explains the status and trend of forest cover changes in Northern Ethiopia, application of GIS and remote sensing in detecting the trend of spatial and temporal forest cover changes, mapping the susceptible areas to deforestation for conservation decisions, and the major factors of deforestation. This book is supposed to be useful especially professionals in geographical information, forest ecosystem management studies, or anyone else who is involved land resources management and monitoring.