Monitoring deforestation and its impacts on edaphic and climatic factors in Yankari Game Reserve

Abstract

This study was carried out to determine and quantify the impact of human activities on vegetation productivity and local edaphic and climatic factors inside and outside Yankari Game Reserve (YGR). The data used was extracted from high resolution satellite imagery. The result revealed that there was a significant (α = 0.05, p = 0.00) increase of Human Foot Print (HFP) from the year 2000 to and 2018 both around and inside the YGR. The HFP significantly (α = 0.05, p = 0.00) decreases in a continuum starting from the furthest point from the border of the YGR towards the center of the YGR. The result also showed a strong but negative relationship between the Human Foot Print (HFP) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Aridity Index (AI); soil organic carbon (SOC), Total Nitrogen (TN), Total Phosphorus (TP) and Exchangeable Phosphorus (EP). The NDVI, EVI, AI, SOC, TN, TP and EP also positively correlated among themselves. These results suggested that vegetation productivity, climatic and soil variables (NDVI, EVI, AI, SOC, TN, TP and EP) are perfect indicator and good predictors of HFP; and that these variables were also good predictors of one another, at least in the YGR. Time series analysis revealed a decrease of vegetation cover in the YGR. This decrease in vegetation cover is forecasted to continue in the near future. This information is crucially important in predicting future scenario of HFP on the YGR.