Loss of urban green spaces due to increased land use/ cover changes between 2000-2019: the case of Gweru city, Zimbabwe

Abstract

The study assessed the loss of Gweru’s urban green spaces using geographic information systems and remote sensing techniques aided by observations for ground truthing and interviews. Satellite images for 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2019, were used to come up with a land use/land cover map. Arcmap 10.5 was used to process the images, with supervised classification adopted to determine loss of green spaces. Results show that there was decrease of green spaces from 2000 to 2019. Gweru City Council to keep track of the changes that occur since capturing them will assist in coming up with a map inventory.