LAND USE AND LAND COVER CHANGE AS SUB-INDICATOR FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL-15: IMPLICATION FOR LAND RESTORATION IN ETHIOPIA

Land degradation because of land use and land cover change is severe phenomena in Ethiopia which is mainly caused by lack of appropriate land use policy and feasible land use plan. The understanding of land use and land cover change is vital to determine the rate of land improvement and /or degradation for achievements made for the implementation of sustainable development goal -15 which refer to making land suitable for life. Forest landscape restoration interventions have been underway for the last two decades through community and government initiatives which has supported implementation of sustainable development goal-15. A study was conducted using secondary information from trend Earth Global Observation of national data to analyse the land use and land cover change from 2000-2015. The result showed that the total land mass of Ethiopia is 1,151,167.7km2 and through implementation of forest land scape restoration interventions 18,051.8 km2 area accounting 1.61% has been improved or restored, while 1,096,220.4 km2 area accounting 97.90% of remained stable and 5,443.4 km2 area accounting 0.49% of was degraded. Result also showed tree covered and built up area have increased at the expense of cropland, wet lands, grass land, other land which have decreased proportionally. Result of our study draws policy implication of designing and implementing appropriate land use planning to resolve the fast trend of increasing urbanization as driver land use and land cover change which was observed within fifteen years. The increase in urbanization induces land degradation ultimately reduce on the national effort of forest landscape restoration interventions in reversing land degradation for combating desertification.