Many land cover changes took place in northern Tanzania in the last decades. These land
cover changes were determined using satellite images. The causes and consequences of the
land cover changes were determined using literature and field data from interviews. It
turned out that the Maasai, an ethnic group of pastoralists living in northern Tanzania,
started to settle in the 1970s, because of governmental policies, population growth, climate
change, cultural shift or a combination of these factors. When settled the Maasai started to
adopt crop cultivation next to their traditional pastoralism. In order to do this, they had to
clear the traditional vegetation. This land clearance has consequences for the wind speed
and wind erosion risk. The latter two were estimated using a model with input data from
both field plots and scenarios. It turned out that the erosion risk becomes high after
clearance, since trees are very important in wind reduction and shrubs are very important in
covering the soil surface and preventing particle entrainment