Forest and woodland depletion in the Lake Elementeita basin, Kenya

Abstract

Colour infra-red LANDSAT imagery was used to estimate areal changes in forest and woodland vegetation of the Lake Elementeita watershed (335 km2) in Kenya's rift valley. The rate of depletion from 1973 to 1984 was estimated to be between 4 and 11 View the MathML source. During this period, the basin was stripped of a total of 88 km2 of woodland and forest (or 58% of the total), mostly through replacement by agro-ecosystems. This was associated with a rapid population increase estimated at 5.7View the MathML source between 1962 and 1969 and an average annual growth rate of 3.1% for the period 1962–1979. The effect of this land-use change on rates of soil erosion, water availability and lake levels is discussed.