Past and Future Land Use and Land Cover Trends across the Mara Landscape and the Wider Mau River Basin, Kenya

Abstract

The Maasai Mara and the wider Mau River Basin in East Africa provide fundamental ecosystem services that support people, wildlife, livestock and agriculture. The historical indigenous land use of the Mara and wider Mau basin was wildlife conservation and pastoralism with highland agriculture. However, land policy changes, the rise of community conservancies and the increase in human populations have mediated unprecedented land use shifts over time. We analyze land use and land cover change (LULCC) trends from 1990 to 2040 in the Mara and the wider Mau River Basin landscape. The study examines land use and land cover change trends, establishes factors driving the trends, and assesses the implications of these trends on biodiversity. Multi-temporal satellite images, together with physical and social economic data, were collated to generate future scenarios for transitions for forest, shrubland, grassland, cropland, wetlands and built-up areas between 1990 and 2040. Agricultural expansion is the chief driver of LULCC in the Mara and the wider Mau River Basin, particularly since 2015. There was insignificant change to the forest cover after 2015, which was in part due to government intervention on forest encroachment and boundaries. The anthropogenic choice of tilling the land in the basin caused a decline in grasslands, forests and expanded shrublands, particularly where there was clear tree cutting in the Mau forest. Land use and land cover trends have generated undesirable impacts on ecosystem services that support wildlife conservation.