Using Remote Sensing to Analyse the Role of Urbanization in the Transformation of Land-Use and Land Cover in Likasi Town (Haut-Katanga, DR Congo)

Abstract

Environmental change is characterized as an alteration in the environment caused primarily by human activities and ecological processes that are natural. Given the fact that the southern part of the province of Haut-Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is part of the African Copperbelt and has been a region of intense mining for decades, humans have affected the physical environment in various ways: such as overpopulation, suburbanization, wastage, deforestation. It is therefore important to track and control the changes in the area’s mining activities. This study aimed to analyze these changes using remote sensing techniques. Landsat satellite images from 2002 and 2022 were processed and classified to quantify changes in built-up area, agricultural land, and vegetation cover over the 20-year period. The classification results revealed sizable differences between the two time points, indicating considerable expansion of built-up land and declines in agricultural land and vegetation cover from 2002 to 2022 in Likasi. These findings provide evidence that urban growth has transformed the landscape in Likasi, likely at the expense of farmland and ecosystems. Further analysis of the remote sensing data could quantify the changes and model future trends to support sustainable land use planning. The land cover and land use analysis were performed with the assistance of the ERDAS 16.6.13 software by mapping LANDSAT data from two different years 2002 and 2022.