Assessment of land use and land cover change using GIS and remote sensing techniques in Katsina-Ala Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

The aim of this study was to gain a quantitative understanding of land use and land cover changes in Katsina-Ala Local Government Area of Benue State over the period 1990-2020. Landsat TM (1990); Landsat ETM+ (2000, 2010); and Operational Land Imager (OLI) (2020) were used. The Landsat imagery dataset was sourced from the Earth explorer platform from United States Geological Surveys (USGS). Changes in land cover were measured using time series of remotely sensed data (Landsat TM, ETM and OLI). This study adopted the Error Matrix approach in ArcGIS to assess the accuracy of the classification. Result shows that 43.25% of farm land cover was gained during the period 1990 to 2020 with an annual rate of change of 1.44%. Forest land cover was lost by -53.19% between 1990 and 2020 with an annual rate of change of -1.77%, built up area has increased by 9.20% with an annual rate of change of 0.31%.