Assessment of Land Use/Land Cover Change and Vegetation Dynamics in Mokwa Local Government Area, Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

Land use and land cover (LULC) changes have significant implications for environmental sustainability, biodiversity conservation, and natural resource management. This study assessed the spatial and temporal changes in land use/land cover in Mokwa Local Government, Niger State, Nigeria, between 2000 and 2020 using Landsat ETM (2000 and 2010) and Landsat OLI (2020) satellite imagery integrated with Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. Ground truthing was conducted to validate the classified images, while supervised image classification, change detection analysis, overlay operations, cross-tabulation, and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were employed to quantify land cover transitions and vegetation dynamics. The result of this study revealed a progressive decline of vegetal cover of the study area from 228,691 hectares (53.3%) in the year 2000, to 171,170 hectares (39.8%) and 119,972 hectares (28.1%) in 2010 and 2020, respectively. On the contrary, built-up and bare surfaces increased from 23,351 hectares (5.4%) and 143,947.2 hectares (33.7%) in 2000 to 53,226 hectares (12.3%) and 181,305.1 hectares (42.3%) respectively in 2010 and a further increase in 2020. In addition, the result of the study revealed that the mean decadal trend of deforestation was 61%, which showed that the vegetation declined by about 61% from 2000 to 2020. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of integrating remote sensing and GIS for monitoring land use dynamics and provides valuable information to support sustainable land-use planning, environmental conservation, and policy formulation aimed at mitigating further land degradation.