Assessment of Some Aspects of Climate Change Impacts and Approaches for Mitigation in Kassala State

Abstract

The objective of the study was to indicate the impacts of climate change in Kassala area during the last three decades. The study was conducted in Aroma and south Kassala areas. For change detection, two images were taken for each site for 1984 and 2008. The change detection assessment was based on special statistics generated from supervised classification of spatial and temporal data of each image using, ETM 1984 and ETM 2008. The dynamic changes that occurred in each site were translated into four land uses. The result indicated that there was declining forest cover in each of the two sites but more pronounced in south Kassala than Aroma area. A trend of increasing agricultural lands and scattered trees and shrubs is clearly shown against decreasing forest land from north to south. The study indicated that dynamic land use changes and their net annual changes are affected by the intensity of agriculture. In Aroma, the annual net change in forest cover during 1984-2008 was -0.179% associated with annual net change of agriculture of -0.175% while bare land increased having a net change of +0.458. In south Kassala, the annual net change in forest cover was -0.279% associated with annual net change of agriculture of +0.5%. The results are in agreement with the perception of the local people that forest cover is declining and that the major causes are agriculture expansion, fuel wood collection, grazing and natural factors. The mitigation approach necessitates policy reforms towards integrated land use management with collaboration of rural people.