Analysis of Land Use Land Cover Dynamics and Driving Factors in Desa’a Forest in Northern Ethiopia

•This study aimed to investigate land use and cover change (LUCC) and its deriving factors in Desa‘a forest•This study applied spatial and radiometric corrections to make the multi-temporal images comparable•The results showed that the classification has been achieved with a high accuracy of 91%•Illegal logging and high dependency of the community on the forest were recognized as the main drivers of LUCC•Of the total area, 48.000 ha of the forests in 1970s have now disappeared, largely replaced by farmland and bare land