Anthropogenic Land Use and Land Cover Change as Potential Drivers of Sediment Sources in the Upper Crocodile River, North West Province, South Africa

Samuel Che Nde (), Sammy Kipyego Bett, Manny Mathuthu and Lobina Palamuleni
Additional contact information
Samuel Che Nde: Unit of Environmental Science and Management, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, North-West University (Mahikeng Campus), Mmabatho 2735, South Africa
Sammy Kipyego Bett: Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, North-West University (Mahikeng Campus), Mmabatho 2735, South Africa
Manny Mathuthu: Centre for Applied Radiation Science and Technology, North-West University (Mahikeng Campus), Mmabatho 2735, South Africa
Lobina Palamuleni: Unit of Environmental Science and Management, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, North-West University (Mahikeng Campus), Mmabatho 2735, South Africa

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 20, 1-19

Abstract: In this study, we investigated the accelerating pace of anthropogenic land use and land cover change (LULCC) disturbance, which has generated enormous impacts on the Crocodile River. Spot images from 1996, 2009 and 2022 were used to generate the land use maps and quantify the changes. A supervised classification with the maximum likelihood classifier was used to classify the images. Sediment sources were classified into two sources, revealed by erosional characteristics in the catchment. A gamma spectrometry detector, high-purity germanium (HPGe) “Well” detector by Canberra and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP–MS) were used for the analysis of the samples. The results revealed that from 1996–2022, built-up areas, bare land and water bodies increased by 3.48%, 2.47% and 1.90%, respectively. All the LULCC classes increased annually from 1996–2022, except for grassland, which shrunk. The results of the radionuclides analysis showed that 210 Pb ex was found to be a more effective tracer than 137 Cs. The mass balance model revealed that subsurface sources contributed 60%, while surface sources contributed 40%, of the sediment load in the river. This research provides valuable information necessary for integrated catchment management policies for future LULCC and soil erosion to be adopted.

Keywords: land use/land cover dynamic; sediment contamination; river pollution; sediment source tracing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/20/13313/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/20/13313/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:20:p:13313-:d:943358

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().