Land, according to Rossiter (1996), is defined as the area of the earth’s surface characterised by atmosphere, soil, underlying geology, hydrology and the biotic components such as plants and animals. These attributes bring into play a significant influence on the present and future uses of the land by us humans.
The turned focus to land for the sourcing out of food, extraction of natural resources and as a source of income for individuals, has been a norm for years. Decisions on land use have constantly been a part of the evolution of society (FAO, 1976). Since the land use changes have progressed throughout the years, the need for land use planning was brought about.
This process of land use planning aims to guide the decisions taken on land …show more content…
Inappropriate use of land leads to social problems such as poverty (Rossiter., 1996), the exploitation of natural resources and the deterioration of land resources.
According to (Tasser & Tappeiner., 2002; Falucci et al., 2007) land use change has impacted natural and semi-natural ecosystems in various ways over the last few decades. These land use changes also represent a crucial threat to biodiversity in most ecosystems (Sala et al., 2000) with vital consequences for the functions of …show more content…
Remote sensing, aerial photography (Wear & Bolstad., 1998) and surveys are commonly used for obtaining vast amounts of data in computer format, and this can be seen as one of the benefits of GIS (Maguire., 1991). GIS has the ability to take these sources of data and manipulate it to become vital information. Also, the advantages of using remote sensing as a data source can depict the changes of land use by observing the current and archived remote sensed data (Mustafa et al.,
The turned focus to land for the sourcing out of food, extraction of natural resources and as a source of income for individuals, has been a norm for years. Decisions on land use have constantly been a part of the evolution of society (FAO, 1976). Since the land use changes have progressed throughout the years, the need for land use planning was brought about.
This process of land use planning aims to guide the decisions taken on land …show more content…
Inappropriate use of land leads to social problems such as poverty (Rossiter., 1996), the exploitation of natural resources and the deterioration of land resources.
According to (Tasser & Tappeiner., 2002; Falucci et al., 2007) land use change has impacted natural and semi-natural ecosystems in various ways over the last few decades. These land use changes also represent a crucial threat to biodiversity in most ecosystems (Sala et al., 2000) with vital consequences for the functions of …show more content…
Remote sensing, aerial photography (Wear & Bolstad., 1998) and surveys are commonly used for obtaining vast amounts of data in computer format, and this can be seen as one of the benefits of GIS (Maguire., 1991). GIS has the ability to take these sources of data and manipulate it to become vital information. Also, the advantages of using remote sensing as a data source can depict the changes of land use by observing the current and archived remote sensed data (Mustafa et al.,