Use of multispectral satellite data to assess impacts of land management practices on wetlands in the Limpopo Transfrontier River Basin, South Africa

Abstract

The study sought to assess the impacts of land use and land cover (LULC) changes on two wetland systems (Makuleke and Nylsvley Nature Reserve) in the Limpopo Transfrontier River Basin (LTRB) in South Africa between 2014 and 2018. To fulfil this objec-tive, multi-date Landsat images were used. Furthermore, the max-imum likelihood classification algorithm was used to identify various LULC classes within delineated wetlands. The LULC changes were mapped from the two wetlands, with high overall accura-cies, ranging from 80% to 89% for both study areas. The spatial extent of the Makuleke wetland declined by 2% between 2014 and 2018, whereas the Nylsvley wetland decreased by 3%.