Landuse and Landcover Change Detection in the Kainji Lake Basin Nigeria Using Remote Sensing and GIS Approach

Abstract

One of the problems associated with dams anywhere in the world, is environmental degradation. On the context of Kainji Lake, the period of over four decades when the dam was constructed has witnessed remarkably, rapid expansion, growth and developmental activities such as agriculture, deforestation, irrigation, fishing, and construction of bridges and roads. In the course of carrying out these activities, the environment is degraded and thereby damaging the ecosystem and the landscape, and offsetting the already fragile ecological balance. Landsat MSS Landuse/landcover map of 1978 and Spot XS landuse/landcover map of 1995 was used to study the landuse/landcover changes of the Lake area between 1978 and 1995 – a period of 17 years. Ilwis for Academic, Arcview 3.0 and Idrisi 32 were used for georeferencing, digitizing and map analysis respectively. The two main methods of change detection that were used were area calculations (trends, rates and proportion), and overlay for the nature and the location of the changes. The study revealed that about 71.92% of the area has been subjected to changes, while, 28.08% had not been subjected to any changes. Within the study period, the lake basin has recorded -239.8842km magnitude of changes, -345.23 percentage change and -57.3% annual rate of changes.

Keywords: Landuse, Remote sensing, GIS, Landcover