Spatial analysis of land use and land cover change in Akko Local Government Area of Gombe State, Nigeria

Abstract

The objective of the study was to conduct a spatial analysis of land use, land cover changes in Akko LGA of Gombe state, Nigeria. Landsat (TM) images of 2003, 2013 and 2023 were used. The study used supervised digital image classification method using Erdas imagin 9.2 and Ilwis 3.1 and classified the land use into water body, vegetation, built up area, farmland and bare land. The images passed through the process of geo-referencing, image enhancement, image resampling and classification. Data was collected primarily as follows; Landsat imagery in ArcGis Pro software, Population data from National Population Commission, Questionnaire was drafted by the author and purposive sampling methods was used for collection of data. Vegetation cover recorded an increase in land area as opposed to the significant decrease recorded between the year 2013 and 2023, farmland had a slice increase between 2003 and 2013 but recorded a significant increase between 2013 and 2023, bare surface in the area has
been decreasing since 2003 to 2023, hence built-up areas has increase in 2023 from 2003. The increase in land use for farmland surpass that of the built – up area, due to the increase in number of people and the subsequent need to have a source of livelihood which obviously is mainly agriculture. land use land cover change has caused erosion, through the conversion of
vegetation land into farmland and built - up area, which has affected their houses as well as the livelihood system, and the economic activities of the people in the study area. Government intervention in the area of family planning to reduce the number of birth rate reducing overpopulation which causes land cover change. Government provision of capital to encourage entrepreneur and business to also reduce the population reliance on agriculture which also causes land cover change, Measures taken by the State Ministry of Urban and rural Planning to discourage indiscriminate building of houses in an unsustainable way that increases Land use and subsequent causes of erosion and land degradation.