Land Use Change and Its Determinant Factors in Northern Laos: Spatial and Socio-economic Analysis

Changes in land use areoften associated with policy implementation and socio-economic factors. The objective of this study was to interpret the patterns of land use and changes in land cover with a watershed area, especially focusing on the detection of change of agricultural land. The socio-economic factors contributing to land change was also analyzed. This study adopted both spatial and socio-economic analysis with remote sensing and logistic regression model. Land use maps of the study area for the years 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010 were interpreted from Landsat 5 TM and prepared with eight classes of land use/land cover types. This study revealed that the land use/land cover in the study area had dynamically changed with socio-economic factors in each period. Particularly, 70% of forest covers had significantly decreased in contrast to the increase of other land use types such as secondary forest/mixed or shrubland and agricultural land. The logistic regression model provided results of socio-economic factors that influenced land use changein each period.