Gurage Zone is one of the areas of Ethiopia experiencing rapid land use and land cover (LULC) changes over the past few decades. This study assessed the contribution of eucalyptus expansion to LULC changes based on a detailed household level survey, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and a set of Landsat imageries. Both descriptive statistics and econometric model were employed for the analysis of drivers of eucalyptus plantation. LULC change detection technique was used to examine the changes in LULC over time. This study achieved a mean classification accuracy of 89.17% and 0.83 overall Kappa statistics for the tree LULC maps. The result of descriptive analysis revealed that more than 42% of the sampled households have planted eucalyptus trees on crop land. The study indicated that eucalyptus plantation which was fourth in LULC ranking in 2000 has increased by 68.3% in 2021 to become the second largest land cover next to crop land. On the other hand, from 2010 to 2021, the area covered by crops showed a decline. This indicates eucalyptus tree to be the major cause of LULC change in the study area. The econometric estimation identified the micro-level drivers such as land size and access to market to be important factors influencing eucalyptus plantation. This study suggests that the rapid expansion of eucalyptus plantation on fertile soil requires an immediate policy response in order to balance food crop production and eucalyptus plantation in Gurage Zone.

中文翻译：

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埃塞俄比亚桉树扩张与土地利用和土地覆盖动态——来自埃塞俄比亚古拉格地区的经验证据

古拉格区是埃塞俄比亚在过去几十年中经历快速土地利用和土地覆盖（LULC）变化的地区之一。本研究根据详细的家庭调查、关键知情人访谈、焦点小组讨论和一组陆地卫星图像，评估了桉树扩张对土地利用和土地利用变化的贡献。采用描述性统计和计量经济模型对桉树人工林驱动因素进行分析。 LULC变化检测技术用于检查LULC随时间的变化。本研究的树 LULC 地图的平均分类准确度为 89.17%，整体 Kappa 统计为 0.83。描述性分析结果显示，超过42%的样本户在农田上种植了桉树。研究表明，2000年土地利用和覆盖率排名第四的桉树人工林到2021年增加了68.3%，成为仅次于农田的第二大土地覆盖面积。另一方面，2010年至2021年，农作物覆盖面积呈现下降趋势。这表明桉树是研究区土地利用覆盖率变化的主要原因。计量经济学估计确定了土地面积和市场准入等微观层面的驱动因素是影响桉树种植园的重要因素。这项研究表明，肥沃土壤上桉树种植园的快速扩张需要立即采取政策反应，以平衡古拉格地区的粮食作物生产和桉树种植园。