Land Use and Land Cover Dynamics in the Urban Watershed of Kimemi River (Butembo/d.r.c)

Changes in land use and land cover (LULC) influence hydrological processes in a watershed.This study analyses the dynamics of LULC in the Kimemi watershed from 1987 to 2021.GIS and remote sensing tools as well as landscape pattern analysis were used to achieve this purpose.The results reveal that the LULC change is globally marked by an increase in the bare land and building at the expense of the low vegetation (grassland).Between 1987 and 2011, the bare land and buildings (Tg = 61.33%)and the woodland (Tg = 34.2%)classes increased, whereas the grassland class decreased (Tg = -39.5%).On the other hand, between 2011 and 2015, the bare land and building class still increased (Tg = 29.9%)while that of grassland and woodland decreased with Tg = -37.3%and Tg = -4.9%,respectively.Finally, the dynamics observed from 2015 to 2021 is marked by small changes between classes with Tg values of 2.1%, 1.9% and -8.9%, respectively, for the bare land and building, grassland and woodland classes, respectively.The main spatial transformation processes observed are creation and dissection for the bare land and building class, and the grassland class respectively.In particular, the woodland class underwent the creation process between 1987 and 2011 before undergoing attrition (2011-2015-2021).Reduced vegetated areas give rise to new planning decisions to mitigate the hydrological risks that could result from this situation.