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An appraisal of landuse
and landcover mapping in
Nigeria
Ademiluyi, I. A. Okude, A. S. and Akanni, C. O.
Department of Geography and Regional Planning, Olabisi
Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria
*Corresponding author. E-mail:
woleademiluyi2005@yahoo.com .
Accepted 26 August, 2008 |
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Land use
and landcover change have emerged as a global phenomenon and
perhaps the most significant regional anthropogenic
disturbance to the environment, especially in the 20th
century. Rapid urbanization/industrialization and large
scale agriculture and major changes in human activities have
been identified as the major causes of the dramatic changes
in land cover and land use patterns globally. Dramatic land
cover and land use changes that would have once required
centuries now take place within a few decades. Africa is
said to have the fastest rate of deforestation in the world
as a result of over-dependence on primary resources with
direct effect on the bio-diversity. All these call for an
urgent need for proper geo-management of land; that is
concomitant upon the availability of a detailed, accurate
and up-to-date data. Although, there has been a world wide
increase in awareness and studies on land use and land cover
change analysis in the last four to five decades, there is
still an extremely low level of research attention on land
use and land cover change studies in Nigeria. Also, some of
the few prominent land use and land cover analysis and
change detection attempts in the country relied heavily on
manual analysis procedure as against the modern recognized
digital image interpretation and analysis procedure. It is
against this background that this paper attempts the
appraisal of some landuse/landcover mapping studies in
Nigeria, with a view to ascertaining their usefulness and,
more importantly, to suggest the usefulness and application
of some of the ‘modern’ methods to relevant studies in
Nigeria.
Key
words:
Landcover,
Landuse, Remote Sensing, Biodiversity and Environment. |
