Assessment of status of Wetlands in Ede, Osun State, Nigeria

Abstract

The status of wetlands in Ede, Osun State was studied using some geospatial techniques of GIS and remote sensing. Spatial and non-spatial data sets including the administrative up of the area were extracted from the local government area. Supervised classification was done to match spectral classes in the ENVI 4.7 environment. These were identified as built-up areas, bush land, farmland, bare land and wetland/swamps. Operations as filtering were carried out to improve the image quality in the ENVI 4.7 environment. The class masks are ENVI 4.7 classification images with class colours matching the final state image (2012). Results identified nine (9) wetland sites with various land use activities as settlements, infrastructure development and cultivation. The larger area of Ede and environs is used for settlement and agriculture, whereas the larger urban portion is used for infrastructure development as road construction, dams, and educational institutes. The use of satellite remote sensing sensors, computerised mapping techniques and GIS now enhances the ability to capture more detailed and timely information about natural resources at various scales.

Keywords: Wetlands, natural resources, Ede, remote sensing, GIS.