The objective of this study was to analyze land use/land cover (LULC) changes in the landscape of Munessa-Shashemene area of the Ethiopian highlands over a period of 39 years (1973–2012). Satellite images of Landsat MSS (1973), TM (1986), ETM+ (2000), and RapidEye (2012) were used. All images were classified using object-based image classification technique. Accuracy assessments were conducted for each reference year. Change analysis was carried out using post classification comparison in GIS. Nine LULCs were successfully captured with overall accuracies ranging from 85.7% to 93.2% and Kappa statistic of 0.822 to 0.924. The classification result revealed that grasslands (42.3%), natural forests (21%), and woodlands (11.4%) were dominant LULC types in 1973. In 2012, croplands (48.5%) were the major LULC types followed by others. The change result shows that a rapid reduction in woodland cover of 81.8%, 52.3%, and 36.1% occurred between the first (1973–1986), second (1986–2000), and third (2000–2012) study periods, respectively. Similarly, natural forests cover decreased by 26.1% during the first, 21.1% during the second, and 24.4% during the third periods. Grasslands also declined by 11.9, 17.5, and 21.1% during the three periods, respectively. On the contrary, croplands increased in all three periods by 131, 31.5, and 22.7%, respectively. Analysis of the 39-year change matrix revealed that about 60% of the land showed changes in LULC. Changes were also common along the slope gradient and agro-ecological zones with varying proportions. Further study is suggested to investigate detailed drivers and consequences of changes.

This paper presents a case study of land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes from 1975 to 2014 in the central highlands of Ethiopia and traces out its impact on socioeconomic conditions of the local community in the study area. We used four time series Landsat satellite images, that is, Landsat MSS (1975), Landsat Thematic Mapper (1986), Enhanced Thematic Mapper (2000), and Landsat 8 OLI scenes (2014), to investigate the changes in LULC. In addition, individual interviews with 51 randomly selected households, discussions with focus group and key informants, and field observations were also incorporated for the study. The image classification indicated four categories of LULC classes: Natural forest, eucalyptus plantations, cropland/settlements, and grasslands. Between 1975 and 2014, cropland/settlements and eucalyptus plantations considerably increased, whereas grassland cover drastically decreased. According to the results, the area under cropland/settlements and eucalyptus plantations increased by 62 and 335%, respectively, with 74% concomitant decrease in the area of grasslands in the same period. Survey results showed that deterioration of soil fertility (41.2%) followed by shortage of land (35.3%) is the major constraint for crop production for poor farmers in the study area. However, better-off farmers ranked deterioration of soil fertility (64.7%) followed by lack of credit (17.6%) as priority constraints for crop production. Interviews mainly focused on selected women group revealed that the expansion of eucalyptus in the area greatly curbed the burdens of collecting fuel woods from long distances in the past. The availability of too many religious holidays (on average 16 days/month) directly or indirectly contributes to the current seasonal food shortages of the community. Generally, our results show that the community in the study area is beset with a host of social, economic, and institutional challenges. As a result, majority of the farming households are destitute, unable to make a livelihood from their small plot of land and live in absolute poverty. Therefore, in light of these finding, it is imperative that timely interventions by government and other development stakeholders are needed to come to grips with problems of soil fertility, land-use change, and food insecurity in the study area.