Abstract:
Land-use/ Land-cover change (LULCC) is fast taking place in the regions abounding the
Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) that constitute the Maasai Mara ecosystem.
The modification, conversion and maintenance of Land cover are forms of human
interference prevalent in the Mara ecosystem. Changes in the manner in which human
beings interact with the environment alter land use and in effect alter land cover. As the
dominant and natural land cover are altered, the land surface and it's properties are
altered, leading to changes in land-atmosphere interactions upon which many ecosystem
services rely are also altered resulting in climate variability. Land Surface
Temperature(LST or Ts) is a land surface property, which varies over space and in time
as a function of vegetation cover, surface moisture, soil types, topography and
meteorological conditions. LULCC influence and affect LST, which is pertinent to
climate variability studies. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is a
numerical indicator used in remote sensing to assess the concentration of green leaf
vegetation and plant phenology and how plant phenology are affected by weather and
climate variations. The variation of vegetation and hence NDVI therefore affects land
surface processes, which influence energy exchanges between the land surface and
atmosphere. The study area is the area constituting the Maasai Mara National Reserve
and bounded by major urban centres including Narok, Kilgoris, Maji Moto and
Lolgorian towns. The study found that there was substantial Land use/ Land cover
change (LULCC) in the epochs of study accompanied by an increase in minimum LST
in all epochs apart from between 1995 and 2003. A comparative analysis of LST and
LULC revealed that LST decrease was mostly in the regions where there was land cover
change to sparse vegetation or grasslands, while increase took place where there was
conversion to cultivated land, thus indicating that LULC has an effect on LST.
Keywords-Land surface properties, Climate variability, LST, LULCC, NDVI
