Impact of tsetse control on land use in the semi-arid zone of Zimbabwe. Phase 2: Analysis of land use change by remote sensing imagery (NRI Bulletin 70)

Tsetse control is carried out to facilitate the expansion of livestock-based production systems in areas cleared of the threat of bovine trypanosomiasis. There is a growing awareness of the need for tsetse control to be considered an integral component of rural development and of the importance of monitoring and evaluating both the causes and consequences of potential land-use changes as a prerequisite for planning control operations. As part of an international programme to evaluate the environmental and socio-economic effects of tsetse control in southern Africa, changes in land cover over a 20-year period are being assessed in an area of Zimbabwe with a long and varied history of tetse control and agricultural development. The study area, adjacent to Lake Kariba, covers approximately 8300 km2 and comprises Reserved, Communal and State Lands. The first phase of the study established the baseline land-use and vegetation patterns, using satellite imagery. In Phase 2, changes in land cover, particularly human-dominated land use (HDLU), are examined from 1972 to 1993, using four Landsat TM and five MSS images, integrated with other datasets in ARC/INFO GIS.