Illegal land use change assessment using GIS and remote sensing to support sustainable land management strategies in Taiwan

Land use is changing at accelerated rates in Taiwan, and illegal land use change practices (ILP) are regularly observed within conservation areas. For this reason, we map high-potential areas of ILP within the Soil and water conservation zone (SWCZ) as an aid for effective land management and conducted an exploratory analysis of explanatory variables to evaluate their variability within ILP hot spots. We used variables relevant to hot spots to develop a logistic regression model and identified seven statistically significant variables. We re-applied the logistic regression approach to produce spatially explicit predictions of ILP. High probability areas are distributed along the coastal regions, covering 26% of the SWCZ, and their major drivers are related to accessibility and topography. The results from this research provide relevant information on the major drivers of ILP and high-potential areas, which can support officials in monitoring efforts for better planning and governance within the SWCZ.