Number of Land Cover Changes in Kenya between 2001 and 2011

MODIS provides the Land Cover Type Product MCD12Q1 (Friedl et al., 2002) with 500m grid resolution which represents the same pixel size also used for the MODIS NDVI time-series analysis. Annually data provision and a matching pixel size with the MODIS NDVI data used earlier in this study were key elements for choosing this dataset. The Map shows the number of LULC changes as calculated based on the methods described in chapter II.3.3. Stable areas – where land cover changes are zero – can be identified in southern Kenya, Kajiado County in particular, but also in western Kenya north of Lake Victoria, around Lake Turkana, and in the northeastern part of Kenya bordering Ethiopia. Around 33.16% of the total land area experience zero changes from 2001-2011 while 16.11% changed once and 22.92% show two changes. Three (13.98%), four (9.53%) and five (3.42%) changes can still be observed in Map III.11 while areas experiencing more than five changes are occurring in less than 1% of the total land area.
The different classes show the number of land cover changes within the observation period.

Quality/Lineage: Data was reclassified and analysed in R. Extraction of each land cover change per year and analysis of how many changes occurred in the observation period. Visualization was done in ArcGIS.
Purpose: Number of Land Cover Changes in Kenya between 2001 and 2011