Type
Date
Corporate author
Editor
Illustrator
Producer
Photographer
Contributor
Writer
Translator
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Access Rights
APA citation
Mungai, L. M., Messina, J. P., Zulu, L. C., Qi, J., & Snapp, S. S. (2022). Modeling spatiotemporal patterns of Land Use/Land Cover change in central Malawi using a neural network model. Remote Sensing, 14(14), 3477. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14143477
ISO citation
Abstract
Description
We examine Land Use Land Cover Change (LULCC) in the Dedza and Ntcheu districts of Central Malawi and model anthropogenic and environmental drivers. We present an integrative approach to understanding heterogenous landscape interactions and short- to long-term shocks and how they inform future land management and policy in Malawi. Landsat 30-m satellite imagery for 2001, 2009, and 2019 was used to identify and quantify LULCC outcomes based on eight input classes: agriculture, built-up areas, barren, water, wetlands, forest-mixed vegetation, shrub-woodland, and other. A Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) neural network was developed to examine land-cover transitions based on the drivers; elevation, slope, soil texture, population density and distance from roads and rivers. Agriculture is projected to dominate the landscape by 2050. Dedza has a higher probability of future land conversion to agriculture (0.45 to 0.70) than Ntcheu (0.30 to 0.45). These findings suggest that future land management initiatives should focus on spatiotemporal patterns in land cover and develop multidimensional policies that promote land conservation in the local context.
Keywords
Citation
Copyright
CIMMYT manages Intellectual Assets as International Public Goods. The user is free to download, print, store and share this work. In case you want to translate or create any other derivative work and share or distribute such translation/derivative work, please contact CIMMYT-Knowledge-Center@cgiar.org indicating the work you want to use and the kind of use you intend; CIMMYT will contact you with the suitable license for that purpose
Journal
Remote Sensing
Journal volume
14
Journal issue
14
Article number
3477
Place of Publication
Basel (Switzerland)
Publisher
MDPI