Browsing by Author "Paul, Elias"

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    Forest fires management and land cover change analysis using remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS): a case of Mount Kilimanjaro Conservation Area, Tanzania
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2012) Paul, Elias
    This study is an attempt to study the fire prone around Kilimanjaro Mountain and to analyze land use change using the existing satellite imagery. Two sets of land use data were developed in raster format from satellite images for 1987 and 2000 by using ILWIS 3.0 and ArcView GIS 3.2 software .Regions were identified through analysis of vegetation cover. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were produced for the satellite images of 1987 and 2000, the higher the NDVI value, the denser or healthier the green vegetation. From this study the higher value of NDVI for the year 1987 and 2000 is 0.689 which occupied 800,066ha and 0.478 which occupied 542,583ha respectively and the smaller value is -0.095 which occupied 426,431ha for the year 1987 and -0.318 which occupied 386,631ha for the year 2000, imply that in the year 2000 the vegetation status were very prone to fire compared with the year 1987 and therefore these information is crucial to help land managers optimize both fire prevention and fighting activities.Results of this study revealed that the land use/cover change between 1987 and 2000 are 14.72%, 43.83%, 90.75% and 14.67% increase for Helichysum cushion vegetation, subalpine Erica forest, Erica forest and Montana forest respectively. The change in the land use/covers indicates that, there is the regeneration of new vegetation after being destroyed by fire and other illegal activities like logging.