Assessing the built-up footprint in an agricultural system using multi-temporal remotely sensed data
2017
Dlamini, Zibusiso | Adjorlolo, Clement | Odindi, John
The advent of the new political dispensation in South Africa has seen an exponential growth in therate of land transformation and encroachment by other land uses into valuable agro-ecologicalzones. Due to the socio-economic value of the often limited high-potential agricultural land in thecountry, a reliable determination of encroachment and transformation is necessary for effectivemonitoring and management of such agro-ecological resources. Using the robust support vectormachine classification algorithm, this study adopted multi-temporal, remotely sensed datasets toassess the extent to which the physical development footprint in the uMngeni Local Municipalityaffected the existing agro-ecological zones from 1993 to 2003 and from 2003 to 2013. The resultsshow a steady increase in built-up areas during the period under investigation. The studydemonstrates the value of multi-temporal, remotely sensed datasets and techniques in mapping thevulnerability of existing agricultural land to urbanisation in the study area.
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