Review on Effects of Land Use Land Cover Change on Plant Species Composition, The Case of Ethiopia

Land use is the purpose to which land is put by humans (protected areas, forestry for timber products, plantations, row-crop agriculture, pastures, or human settlements). Land cover is the ecological state and physical appearance of the land surface (closed forests, open forests, grasslands). Land use change is when the use of a particular land is changed from one to another over time, (from natural vegetation (forest) to cultivation; cultivation to grazing or from swamp to cultivation). Ethiopia has the fifth largest floral diversity in tropical Africa. Between; 6,000-7,000 species of higher plants are estimated to exist in the country of which about 780-840 (12-13%) plant species are estimated to be endemic. Ethiopia is one of the most populous countries in Africa, which is experiencing huge land use land cover (LULC) dynamics from natural vegetation to farming practices and human settlement. Existing sources indicate that about 40% of the country’s land area was covered with dense forests at the turn of the 20th century. However, the forest coverage has reached a low level of 3.56%. Agricultural expansion is, by far, the leading land-use change associated with nearly all deforestation cases (96%) while energy consumption, infrastructure development involves both settlement expansion as well as the expansion of transport networks were also the major factor driving land use land cover change and resulting in Ethiopian plant species biodiversity loss. So that, estimation of land use impacts on biodiversity, especially at landscape scale, is necessary to ensure systematic conservation planning and designing sound land use management system. Keywords : Land use, Land cover, Plant species diversity, Biodiversity DOI : 10.7176/JBAH/9-3-05