Earth Observation Based Protected Areas Monitoring and Assessment in East Africa

The objective of the study was to assess the status of some key selected wildlife protected areas by producing land cover and land cover change maps using medium resolution satellite data and undertake future prediction of forest and other cover changes with a view to supporting long term natural resources planning and management. Mt. Elgon National Park and Queen Elizabeth National Park were selected. Landsat satellite data were used to undertake land cover mapping for the epochs 1990, 2000, 2010. The largest change in land cover between 1990 and 2019 were crop land, closed forest and open grassland. Crop land increased in area by 82 and 60% between 1990 and 2019 in Mt. Elgon and Queen Elizabeth National Parks respectively. Closed forest decreased in area by 28% in Mt. Elgon while in Queen Elizabeth open grassland decreased by 67%. It is predicted that by 2050 closed forest will decrease by 65% in Mt. Elgon National Park and cropland increase by 250%. These changes can be related to the increase in population, climate variability and related natural disasters.