ABSTRACT

The study sought to assess the impacts of land use and land cover (LULC) changes on two wetland systems (Makuleke and Nylsvley Nature Reserve) in the Limpopo Transfrontier River Basin (LTRB) in South Africa between 2014 and 2018. To fulfil this objective, multi-date Landsat images were used. Furthermore, the maximum likelihood classification algorithm was used to identify various LULC classes within delineated wetlands. The LULC changes were mapped from the two wetlands, with high overall accuracies, ranging from 80% to 89% for both study areas. The spatial extent of the Makuleke wetland declined by 2% between 2014 and 2018, whereas the Nylsvley wetland decreased by 3%. Built-up areas have increased slightly over the 2014 and 2018 period because of population growth and infrastructure development, which occupy a portion of the wetland. In Nylsvley wetland, it was evident that during the 5-year monitoring period, croplands increased steadily in the Nylsvley catchment. Overall, the results demonstrated a steady decline in natural vegetation cover in both wetlands. This information can aid in enforcing wetland legislations and LULC management practices that can help protect them from further encroachment and degradation.

摘要

该研究旨在评估 2014 年至 2018 年间土地利用和土地覆盖 (LULC) 变化对南非林波波跨界河流域 (LTRB) 的两个湿地系统 (Makuleke 和 Nylsvley 自然保护区) 的影响。为了实现这一目标，使用了多日期陆地卫星图像。此外，最大似然分类算法用于识别划定湿地内的各种 LULC 类别。LULC 变化是从两个湿地绘制的，总体准确度很高，两个研究区域的准确率在 80% 到 89% 之间。Makuleke 湿地的空间范围在 2014 年至 2018 年间下降了 2%，而 Nylsvley 湿地下降了 3%。由于人口增长和基础设施建设占据了湿地的一部分，建成区在 2014 年和 2018 年期间略有增加。在 Nylsvley 湿地，很明显，在 5 年的监测期内，Nylsvley 集水区的农田稳步增加。总体而言，结果表明两个湿地的自然植被覆盖率稳步下降。这些信息可以帮助执行湿地立法和 LULC 管理实践，帮助保护它们免受进一步的侵占和退化。