Application of Markov chains in estimating land use and land cover changes in Dodoma municipality.

The knowledge of Markov Chains may in one way or the other be useful in predicting future changes based on the rates of past changes. The study identified and quantified the LULC situation in Dodoma Municipality for the years 2001 and 2010 based on Landsat satellite images. LULC mapping was generated to serve as a base to understand the patterns of the changes. It assumed LULC change process for the two periods is a Markov Chain with stationary transition probabilities whose states are the different categories of LULC i.e, Agricultural land, Range land, Urban land, Woodland and 'Other The change dynamics were investigated and projection for the next 1 0 years was made. The method is based on probability that a given piece of land will change from one mutually exclusive state to another given its current state. Between the years 2001 and 2010, Agricultural expansion and Woodland declining were the dominant change processes. Between 2001 and 2010, Agricultural land increased by 23,661 hectares (32.39%) and Woodland cover decreased by 34,447. Population increase was identified to be the most important driving force for the LULC changes. The results obtained by applying Markov chain for projecting 2020 land use distribution, showed an increasing trend of Agricultural land and urban land, and a downward trend of Rangeland, Other and Woodland land covers. Planning and implementation of various conservation activities are recommended to be designed for fixture municipal land use management and conservation strategies. A combined use of GIS and Markov Chains enabled modelling of the LULC changes over the municipality.