| dc.description.abstract |
Wetlands are areas of great importance in our ecosystem hence their proper management and protection is crucial for the benefits of the current as well as the future generation. Wetlands regulate the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, are a home for various flora and fauna, source of food and fuel as well as storage for water. Kirinyaga is a resourceful county in Kenya with one of these resources being wetlands, which are a great source of water used for irrigation of rice in the Mwea Irrigation Scheme. This project aimed to use GIS and remote sensing to monitor the degrading condition of these wetlands over the years using Landsat images and the impact this has on food production. The conducted research put into consideration a period of eighteen years starting from 2000 to 2018. This project relied upon both primary and secondary data. The primary data involved field visits, observations and oral interviews from residents of the County. The secondary data heavily borrowed from existing published literature. From the images analyzed it was found that wetlands have been degrading over the years due to several factors such increased demand for land for settlement due to the continuous growth in population and the urbanization taking place in the County. The NDPI index aided in visualizing changes in wetlands within the county boundary over the years. From the classification results, wetland degradation was correlated with the other vegetation, which mainly entailed the agricultural land. It was also correlated with the population data as well as the crop (rice) production data. Correlation among the correlated data types was established. |
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