Spatio-temporal analysis of urban sprawl and land use / land cover changes in a suburb of Lagos and Ogun metropolises, Nigeria (1986-2014)

Abstract

Urban sprawl and land use / land cover changes in a suburb of Lagos, Nigeria were assessed using Landsat TM 1984 and 2000 and Landsat OLI of 2014. Five broad land use and land cover classes i.e. built-up area, bare ground, water body, thick forest and light forest were identified and mapped. Thick forest had the largest coverage of 8537.72 hectares (67.52%) of the land cover while built-up was just 1075.99 hectares (8.51 %).
Between 1984 and 2014 built up areas gained 6423.38 hectares (59.31 % increase) compared to 8612.09 hectares loss by thick forest cover. A post-classification change analysis from 1984 to 2014 reveals that thick and light forest types had the highest net losses because of conversion to other uses, especially built-up. Urbanization and subsequent urban sprawl is a major factor of land degradation leading to rapid losses of non-urban land uses, especially in the urban fringes.

Keywords: Land use/land cover change; change detection; remote sensing; GIS; urbanisation