Landuse and Landcover Change Detection of Jebba Lake Basin Nigeria: Remote Sensing and GIS Approach

Abstract

This study is focused on change detection on the Jebba Lake Basin between 1978 (five years before the darn was established) and 1995 (twelve years after the dam impoundment. It is evidently clear that one of the problems associated with dams anywhere in the world, is environmental degradation. Landsat MSS Landuse/landcover map of 1978 and Spot XS landuse/landcover map of 1995 was used to study the landuse/landcover changes of the Lake area between 1978 and 1995 - a period of 17 years. Ilwis for Academic, Arcview 3.0 and Idrisi 32 were used for geo-referencing, digitizing and map analysis respectively. The two main methods of change detection that were used were area calculations (trends, rates and proportion), and overlay for the nature and the location of the changes. The study revealed that about 77.41% of the basin area has been subjected to changes, while, 22.59% had not been subjected to any changes. Five new agricultural practices came into being after the construction of the dam, which include, livestock farming, irrigation agriculture, floodplain agriculture, forest plantation, and tree crop plantation. All these agricultural activities covered about 808.5529km², that is, 40.14% of the basin area.

Keywords: Landuse, GIS, Remote Sensing, Jebba Lake