Effects of Land Use and Land Cover Change on Tse Gavar Forest Reserve, Vandeikya Local Government Area, Benue State, Nigeria
Abstract
Forests are considered to be the very basis for human existence as they touch virtually every aspect of human endeavour. Despite the numerous benefits of forests, the world is experiencing unprecedented degradation of forest and its resources; this is mainly attributed to land use and land cover (LULC) change. Therefore, monitoring of these changes has become a necessity. Hence, the use of remotely sensed data in conjunction with GIS for land use and land cover analysis of Tse Gavar community forest in Vandeikya Local Government Area would definitely enhance the available data for sustainable management and promotion of community forest in the State. This study made use of mostly secondary data from pre-existing satellites imageries. The Landsat TM for 1986, Landsat ETM+ for 2001 and 2012 as well as OLI for 2018 images were sourced from the Earthexplorer platform from United States Geological Surveys (USGS), Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) and GloVis. Images were subjected to various image processing techniques and supervised classification was carried out on the various images. The classification resulted in classes of farmland, other vegetation, forest area and bare land. The percentage of LULC in Tse Gavar Forest Reserve indicated that farmland increased from 5.78% in 1986 to 18.25% in 2018. Shrubland also increased from 3.06% in 1986 to 21.08% in 2018. Forested area decreased from 84.17% in 1986 to 59.38% in 2018. The magnitude of land use/land cover change within the 32 years period showed that 9.36 Ha of the forest area was lost to other forms of land use, the bare land area lost within the period was 0.09 Ha to other land uses. Farmland area increased by 4.32 Ha within the period, shrubland increased by 5078.88 km2. It was established that just like other protected areas, land use and land cover changes are going on in the Tse Gavar community forest reserve. Enrichment planting of the reserve was recommended.
Downloads
References
Adedeji, O. H., Tope-Ajayi, O. O., & Abegunde, O. L. (2015). Assessing and Predicting Changes in the Status of Gambari Forest Reserve, Nigeria Using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques. Journal of Geographic Information System, 07(03), 301–318. https://doi.org/10.4236/jgis.2015.73024
Agera, S. I. N., Adegeye, A. O., & Jimoh, S. O. (2010). Appraisal of Taungya Farming as a Sustainable Land-use option in Vandeikya Local Government of Benue State, Nigeria. Journal of Research in Forestry, Wildlife and Environment, 2 (1), 32-43.
Carr, D. L. (2004). Proximate Population Factor and Deforestation in Tropical Agriculture Frontiers. Popul. Environ, 25(6), 585-612.
DeFries, R., Hansen, A. J., Turner, B. L., Reid, R. & Liu, J. (2007). Land-use change around protected areas: management to balance human needs and ecological function. Ecological Applications, 17, 1031–1038
Ellis, E. & Pontius, R. (2010). Land-use and land-cover change. In: Cleveland, C. J. (Eds), Encyclopedia of Earth. Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment.
FAO. (2018). The state of the World Forest. Forest Partways to Sustainable Development. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization.
Faye, L. C., Sambou, H., Kyereh, B. & Sambou, B. (2016). Land Use and Land Cover Change in a Community-Managed Forest in South-Eastern Senegal Under a Formal Forest Management Regime. American Journal of Environmental Protection, 5(1), 1-10.
Gabay, M. & Rekola, M. (2019). Forests, peaceful and inclusive societies, reduced inequality, education, and inclusive institutions at all levels: Background study prepared for the fourteenth session of the United Nations Forum on Forests. Helsinki, Finland: Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki.
Ikusemoran, M. (2009). Landuse and landcover change detection in the Kainji Lake Basin Nigeria using remote sensing and GIS approach. Bayero Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences, 2(1), 83-90.
Ikusemoran, M., & Olokor, J. O. (2014). Monitoring the land-use and vegetation cover changes in the Kainji Lake Basin, Nigeria (1975-2006). African Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 8(2), 129-142.
Iorkosu, T. S., Alugwa, E. D., Akor, D. N., Dzungwe, C. N., Torkobo, J. N., & Orngu, A. G. (2019). An Assessment of Health Practices of Those Who Live Long: A Study of Elderly Persons in Vandeikya L G A of Benue State, Nigeria. World Journal of Innovative Research (WJIR), 6 (6), 132-142.
Jande, J. A., Kwaghkohol, G. T. & Ikyaagba, E.T. (2018). Assessing the Status of Yandev Forest Reserve Using Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) Techniques. Asian Journal of Research in Agriculture and Forestry, 2(2), 1-13,
Laurance, W. F. (2010). Habitat destruction: death by a thousand cuts. In Sodhi, N. S. and Ehrlich, P.R. (Eds), Conservation Biology for All (p. 73-86). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mohammed, S. O.; Gajere, E. N.; Eguaroje, E. `O., Shaba, H., Ogbole, J.O., Mangut, Y.S, Onyeuwaoma, N.D. & Kolawole, I. S. (2013). Spatio-Temporal Analysis of the National Parks in Nigeria using Geographic Information System. Ife Journal of Science, 15 (1), 159-166.
Ogar, D.A., Asuk, S.A. & Umanah, I.E. (2016) Forest Cover Change in Stubb’s Creek Forest Reserve Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. Applied Tropical Agriculture, 21(1), 183-189.
Ogunmola, J. K., Gajere, E. N., Jeb, D. N., & Agene, I. J. (2014). Study of landcover change in Yelwa-Heipang area of Plateau State, north-central Nigeria: A geoinformatics approach. International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences - ISPRS Archives, 40(1), 331–337. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprsarchives-XL-1-331-2014
Oyinloye, R. O., Adesina, F. A. & Salami, A. T. (2010). An Assessment of the State of Forest Reverses in Southwestern Nigeria. Ife Research Publications in Geography, 9(1), 155-175.
Powell, B., A, I., McMullin, S., Jamnadass, R., Padoch, C., Pinedo-Vasquez, M., & Sunderland, T. (2013). The role of forests, trees and wild biodiversity for nutrition-sensitive food. International Conference on Nutrition. (pp. 1–25).
Sala, O. E., Chapin, F. S., Armesto, J. J., Berlow, E., Bloomfield, J., Dirzo, R., Huber-Sanwald, E., Huenneke, L. F., … Wall, D. H. 2000. Biodiversity—global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100. Science, 287, 1770–1774.
Scholte, P. (2011). Towards understanding large mammal population declines in Africa’s protected areas: A West-Central African perspective. Journal - Tropical Conservation Science, 4 (1), 1-11.
Copyright (c) 2020 Emmanuel Tertsea Ikyaagba, PhD, Joseph Asen Jande, Mercy Kpadoo Abiem
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
