Modern Environmental Science and Engineering (ISSN 2333-2581) April 2017, Volume 3, No. 4, pp. 263-271 Doi: 10.15341/mese(2333-2581)/04.03.2017/006 Academic Star Publishing Company, 2017 www.academicstar.us Impact of Biofuel Production on Land-Use Change: Case of Jatropha Farming, Kisarawe District, Tanzania Francis Mwakapuja 1 , Evaristo Liwa 1 , and Japhet J. Kashaigili 2 1. School of Earth Sciences, Real Estate, Business and Informatics, Ardhi University, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 2. Faculty of Forestry and Nature Conservation, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania Abstract: Globally, agricultural sector is the major driver for land use change (LUC), in East Africa where savannas, grassland and shrubland are dominant, land previously occupied by forests is the major source of new agricultural land. The use of agricultural-based biofuels has been expanding worldwide, biofuel farming associated with LUC should be measured as the direct land use change (dLUC); when a biofuel feedstock (e.g., jatropha) directly displaces another land use. The indirect land use change (iLUC); when a productive land use displaced by a biofuel feedstock propels the conversion of native vegetation elsewhere. Few studies have been carried out in Tanzania to investigate the effect of agriculture-based biofuel on LUC, the objective of this study was to investigate the LUC resulting from jatropha production introduced in year 2009 by Sunbiofuel Company in villages within Kisarawe District, Coast Region. Remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS) techniques on Landsat multidate satellite imagery and secondary data were used to establish patterns of direct and indirect LUC. Multidate satellite images were classified and analyzed to study the LUC at three epochs; before cultivation (year 1985), immediately after starting production (year 2010) and year 2011. The study revealed a significant increase in cultivated land, a decrease in forested land and encroachment into forest reserve. It was concluded that the conversion of land used for crop production into jatropha farming caused direct and indirect LUC in the area. The outputs from the study can be used as inputs to the models and methodologies for quantifying LUC effects due to introduction/expansion of biofuels production within a district. Key words: biofuels, land use change (LUC), classification, remote sensing, GIS 1. Introduction Globally, agricultural sector is the major driver for land use change (LUC), Ramankutty et al. (2002) [1] estimated for the year 2000 1.5 billion ha were cropland; out of which 47 percent were converted from forest, 38 percent converted from savanna/grassland and 13 percent converted from shrub. The distribution of cropland and pastures over the different biomes is not homogeneous worldwide; in Europe there is a strong concentration on land which were previously used for forest while in Africa, lands previously occupied by savannas/grasslands are more relevant. Corresponding author: Francis Mwakapuja, Ph.D., research areas/interests: Geoinformatics — geospatial analysis and modelling. E-mail: mwakapuja@gmail.com. The historical expansion of the agricultural sector over time justifies that it was responsible for significant conversion of native vegetation land. Studies by Gibbs (2010) [2] of regions in which the agricultural sector has been growing steadily show that forests were the primary source of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s. In Central Africa, West Africa and South Asia, more than 90 percent of new agricultural land occupied and disturbed forestland. Even in South America and East Africa where savannas, grassland and shrub land are more relevant, land previously occupied by forests is still the major source of new agricultural land [3]. The use of agricultural-based biofuels has been expanding globally, with the assumption that they can be used as a source for decreasing green house gas (GHG) emissions. But, the