## 3 Results
### Land Cover Model Summary
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**2050**} & & & & & \\  & Agriculture & **Built-Up** & **Forest** & **Barren** & **Wetland** & **Water** & **Shrub-Woodland** & **Other** \\ \hline Agriculture & **0.8066** & **0.0275** & **0.0573** & **0.0835** & **0.0241** & **0.0011** & & \\  & 0.4324 & 0.0811 & 0.0648 & 0.1231 & 0.0442 & & 0.2357 & 0.0187 \\ Built-up & **0.7295** & **0.1209** & **0.0353** & **0.0880** & **0.0245** & **0.0018** & & \\  & 0.3720 & 0.2275 & 0.0533 & 0.0998 & 0.0417 & & 0.1842 & 0.0215 \\ Forest-mixed & **0.4848** & **0.0098** & **0.3354** & **0.0755** & **0.0191** & **0.0026** & & \\  & 0.2694 & 0.0312 & 0.2872 & 0.0591 & 0.0567 & & 0.2833 & 0.0130 \\ Barren & **0.6648** & **0.0357** & **0.1422** & **0.0881** & **0.0669** & **0.0024** & & \\  & 0.3801 & 0.0876 & 0.0733 & 0.1614 & 0.0466 & & 0.2276 & 0.0207 \\ Wetland & **0.5633** & **0.0154** & **0.2128** & **0.0880** & **0.1156** & **0.0049** & & \\  & 0.3043 & 0.0455 & 0.1122 & 0.1061 & 0.1002 & & 0.2965 & 0.0351 \\ Water & **0.5595** & **0.0199** & **0.1506** & **0.1101** & **0.0980** & **0.0620** & & \\ Shrub-Woodland & 0.3353 & 0.0501 & 0.1513 & 0.0933 & 0.0535 & & 0.3006 & 0.0159 \\ Other & 0.2700 & 0.5350 & 0.1126 & 0.0899 & 0.1073 & & 0.2937 & 0.0730 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
(Note: Dedza has no shrub-woodland or Other land-cover classes, and Ntcheu has no water land-cover class, so the respective cells were left blank on this table).  
\end{table} 
Table 10: Markov probability of land covers in Dedza (**bold**), Ntcheu (italic) prediction from 2019 to 2050. Figure 9: Land-Cover Transition Potentials (Probabilities): Ntcheu District. districts (Figure 10). Projections of forest conversion include encroachments into forest reserves, and for Dedza, forest cover decreases to 8.8% of total land cover (Table 11), a major source of concern. In Ntcheu, the shrub/woodland class category is projected to be the next largest class (16.0%) from agriculture, suggesting gradual forest thinning and degradation as forest cover shrinks to 7.6% (Table 11). Projections show a significant change in agricultural land by 2050, with Dedza agriculture land area increasing from 232,291 ha in 2019 (Table 4) to 329,697 ha in 2050 while most of the other land classes decreased over time. Similarly, Ntcheu's projections indicate significant expansion for agriculture though at a slower pace, from 120, 057 ha in 2019 to 189,258 ha, while most other land classes decreased over time (Table 5)  
during 2009-2019 than during 2001-2009 for Dedza, while the reverse was true for Ntcheu, i.e., higher gains during 2001-2009 than from 2009 to 2019 might reflect the different initial states for the two districts. Dedza started off in 2001 with nearly half of the land already in agriculture and over a third in combined forest and wetland cover area, and the higher population growth accelerated the conversion of mainly forest and wetlands to agriculture during 2009-2019. The continuing degraded state of Ntcheu reflected in a near doubling of shrub-woodland during 2001-2009 combined with a steeper decline from the higher starting cover wetland, might account for the higher increase in agricultural land use. This might also reflect a growing trend in irrigated agriculture of wetlands locally called _dimba_ during the dry season. Overall, population growth related to driving forces and terrain drivers such as lower slope and elevation accelerate land conversion to agriculture and account for observed increases in agricultural area as well as in settlement building, as noted in earlier findings [5; 10]. The increase in barren areas during 2001-2019 in both districts suggests land-cover clearance or abandonment. This could be explained by farm practices where farmers burn or incorporate crop residues while making ridges after a harvest season, as well as by some land areas left bare of ground cover and undergoing localized soil erosion during rainfall events [61; 62].