Past and Future Land Use and Land Cover Trends across the Mara Landscape and the Wider Mau River Basin, Kenya

Evans Napwora Sitati (), Siro Abdallah, Daniel Olago and Robert Marchant
Additional contact information
Evans Napwora Sitati: Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation, University of Nairobi, Nairobi P.O. Box 30197-00100, Kenya
Siro Abdallah: Conservation Department, Spatial Planning Unit, WWF-Kenya, Nairobi P.O. Box 62440-00200, Kenya
Daniel Olago: Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation, University of Nairobi, Nairobi P.O. Box 30197-00100, Kenya
Robert Marchant: York Institute for Tropical Ecosystems, Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-18

Abstract: The Maasai Mara and the wider Mau River Basin in East Africa provide fundamental ecosystem services that support people, wildlife, livestock and agriculture. The historical indigenous land use of the Mara and wider Mau basin was wildlife conservation and pastoralism with highland agriculture. However, land policy changes, the rise of community conservancies and the increase in human populations have mediated unprecedented land use shifts over time. We analyze land use and land cover change (LULCC) trends from 1990 to 2040 in the Mara and the wider Mau River Basin landscape. The study examines land use and land cover change trends, establishes factors driving the trends, and assesses the implications of these trends on biodiversity. Multi-temporal satellite images, together with physical and social economic data, were collated to generate future scenarios for transitions for forest, shrubland, grassland, cropland, wetlands and built-up areas between 1990 and 2040. Agricultural expansion is the chief driver of LULCC in the Mara and the wider Mau River Basin, particularly since 2015. There was insignificant change to the forest cover after 2015, which was in part due to government intervention on forest encroachment and boundaries. The anthropogenic choice of tilling the land in the basin caused a decline in grasslands, forests and expanded shrublands, particularly where there was clear tree cutting in the Mau forest. Land use and land cover trends have generated undesirable impacts on ecosystem services that support wildlife conservation.

Keywords: land cover change; forests; grassland; shrubland; agriculture conservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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