Land use Change Detection of Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Abstract

This research involved the integration of remote sensing techniques with a Geographic Information System (GIS) framework to get information on the area under study using PC-based image processing and analysis.  Landsat satellite imageries of Khana area was used and a Supervised Classification System (SCS) was adopted using ArcGIS 10.1 software.  Selected bands (7,5 and 3) were processed, training sites were selected to represent land-use classes and image classification was carried out.  A time change mapping and analysis was undertaken for the years 1987, 2000, and 2018.  The area in square kilometers of each land-use type in each year was calculated and thereafter, the change was determined by subtracting the area of the same land-use type in 1987 from 2018.  It was revealed that there was a high percentage of spatial expansion and reduction of some land-use types in the study area between these periods.  There was a steady decline of about 77% in the forested areas from 1987 all through 2000 to 2018 (-228km²).  Cultivated land reduced by 38.46% due to man’s anthropogenic activities (-80km²) and this greatly affected food security in the study area. Water bodies also decreased all through that period in the study area (-2km²).  The study area has been greatly affected by the extent of man’s activities, which have violently shoved away and altered the hydrological pattern as well as creating micro reliefs and changing the traditional land use pattern of forestry and farmlands