The objectives of this study are to quantify, based on remote sensing data, processes of land-cover change and to test a Markov-based model to generate short-term land-cover change projections in a region characterised by exceptionally high rates of change. The region of Lusitu, in the Southern Province of Zambia, has been a land-cover change 'hot spot' since the resettlement of 6000 people in the Lusitu area and the succession of several droughts. Land-cover changes were analysed on the basis of a temporal series of three multispectral SPOT images in three steps: (i) land-cover change detection was performed by combining the postclassi+é+¢cation and image diverencing techniques; (ii) the change detection results were examined in terms of proportion of land-cover classes, change trajectories and spatio-temporal patterns of change; (iii) the process of land-cover change was modelled by a Markov chain to predict land-cover distributions in the near future.