Land Use/Land Cover Changes and Socio-economic Factors Influencing Agroforestry Expansion in Maale Woreda, Southern Ethiopia:

Ethiopian forest cover is rapidly declining while the demand for forest products is continuously increasing. Agroforestry reduces pressure on the existing indigenous forests as it diversifies farm production and provides both subsistence and income through products such as timber, fuel wood and fodder, thus farmers preferred to have practices agroforestry as a means of diversifying household income for food security and self sufficiency in wood and wood products, therefore, This study has identified the Land Use/Land Cover Changes extent, socio economic factors and its influence on agroforestry expansion in maale woreda. For Land Use/Land Cover and its changing pattern analysis time series Landsat imagery data were employed and discussed. Landsat TM (1986), Landsat ETM (2000) and Landsat OLI (2019) were employed for locating training samples, for conventional classification, subsequent LULC change analysis and mapping. In addition to remotely sensed data, household’s survey data was also used to identify socio economic factors and its influence on agroforestry expansion. To determine the factors that influence the expansion level of agroforestry, multinomial logistic regression model was used. The Land Use/Land Cover Changes results show that agroforestry land has increased by 31% in 2019 compared with 1986. Over the last three decades it was increased by 464.7% of its base year total agroforestry land, which was mainly at the expense of shrub/wood land and grassland. Similarly agricultural land increased by 25% of the total study area through the study periods. On the other hand, grassland and shrub/wood land decreased from 5 % and 58% in 1986 to 2 % and 0% in 2019, respectively. On the other hand, forest cover showed increment from 28 % in the base year to 33 % in 2019. Household attributes such as age, educational level and lack of awareness are the constrained agroforestry practices. However, traditional believes and taboos, land size, sex and land tenures are enhancing agroforestry practices in the study area. It was also found out that most farmers were motivated to practices agroforestry because of the multiple benefits local peoples optioned by planting trees and shrubs in and around their farms. Changes in land use/land cover in the study area were growing population pressure, fragmentation of land, declining of crop productivity and rising cost of fuel wood and poles. Inaddtionto, the current household family size and its annual crop production are not proportional, these can be changed only by diversifying and improving the amount of production by the existing agroforestry practice and farming practice and increasing household income through better land management and introducing family planning through education.