Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apgeog Assessing changes in Tanzania's Kwakuchinja Wildlife Corridor using multitemporal satellite imagery and open source tools Emanuel H. Martin a , Ryan R. Jensen b,∗ , Perry J. Hardin b , Alex W. Kisingo a , Rehema A. Shoo a , Abraham Eustace c a College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka, Tanzania b Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA c Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority, Morogoro, Tanzania ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Kwakuchinja wildlife corridor Land cover change Open source tools Google earth engine Landsat ABSTRACT The Kwakuchinja Wildlife Corridor (KWC) connects Tanzania's Tarangire and Lake Manyara national parks. The KWC has historically been an avenue for 25 species of wildlife, including African elephants (Loxodonta africana), to move between the two parks –movement which is essential to maintain herd size and animal well-being. Unfortunately, due to increasing human settlement and agriculture prevalent in the corridor, the health of the corridor was listed as ‘critical’ in 2009. The ability to map, monitor, and model landuse dynamics is essential to conservationists seeking to preserve free animal movement through the KWC. We show that land cover change in the corridor can be mapped using open-source satellite image products and applications. We demonstrate this process by comparing landcover maps derived from Landsat data in 2002 and 2017. The imagery was acquired and processed in the open-source Google Earth Engine and QGIS software. Results show that agriculture in- creased by 35.6% and woodlands decreased by 67.4% in the KWC study area in the period between 2002 and 2017. While some of the farmland increase was simple expansion of pre-existing fields, most of the increase occurred along the newly paved (in 2005) road A104. 1. Introduction 1.1. Wildlife corridors The deliberate movement of wildlife from resource-poor to re- source-rich areas is axiomatic. Wildlife corridors between protected- areas (e.g., national parks) are avenues of such movement. The benefits of these wildlife corridors are many. Corridors provide resources ani- mals need that are not likely available in their main habitat areas. Movement through corridors between protected areas also facilitates gene flow among animal herds and reduces the rate of inbreeding, and corridors can be crucial to maintain endangered wildlife populations. Further, corridors increase habitat diversity as animals explore different habitats not found within both protected and dispersal areas (Caro, Jones, & Davenport, 2009; Crooks & Sanjayan, 2006; Hariohay, 2013; Jones, Caro, and Davenport, 2009). Wildlife corridors are necessary to ensure long-term survival of entire ecosystems (Hariohay, 2013; NOE, 2003). Although wildlife corridors are crucial in wildlife conservation, they are highly threatened. Most of the risks to wildlife corridors are an- thropogenic in origin e.g., cultivation expansion, livestock grazing, in- frastructure development, and settlement (Caro et al., 2009; Hariohay, 2013; Jones et al., 2009). Other factors include poor land use planning, unsustainable natural resource utilization, and road construction (Tanzania Wildlife Corridors, 2018). These activities lead to fragmen- tation and degradation of wildlife corridors. Without correction, the process causes isolation of protected areas (Caro et al., 2009; DeFries, Hansen, Newton, & Hansen, 2005; Gross et al., 2013; Newmark, 2008). Threats to wildlife corridors occur worldwide. For example, the tiger (Panthera tigris) population in India is increasingly jeopardized as the corridor between Kanha and Pench national parks in Madhya Pradesh becomes more fragmented (Hariohay, 2013). In Africa, the corridor connecting Nairobi National Park and the Kitengela wildlife dispersal area has been threatened by increased human population, agriculture, and deforestation (Hariohay, 2013). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2019.102051 Received 21 September 2018; Received in revised form 13 July 2019; Accepted 19 July 2019 ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: emartin@mwekawildlife.ac.tz (E.H. Martin), rjensen@byu.edu (R.R. Jensen), pjh@byu.edu (P.J. Hardin), akisingo@mwekawildlife.ac.tz (A.W. Kisingo), rshoo@mwekawildlife.ac.tz (R.A. Shoo), Abrah15@gmail.com (A. Eustace). Applied Geography 110 (2019) 102051 0143-6228/ © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd. T