Effects of anthropogenic activities on vegetation of Kwande Local Government Area, Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

Effects of anthropogenic activities on vegetation cover of Kwande Local Government Area was carried out to determine the land used and  land cover changes of the study area over the period of 33 years. The study made use of mostly secondary data from pre-existing  satellite imageries. The Landsat TM for 1988, Landsat ETM+ for 2009 and 2021 as well as OLI for 2019 images were sourced from the Earth  explorer platform from United States Geological Surveys (USGS), Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) and GloVis. Images were  subjected to various image processing techniques and supervised classification was carried out on the various images using Idirisi ArcGIS10.1. Six classes—forest area, agricultural area, built up area, Bare land, grassland/herbaceous cover and water body—were  produced by the classification. The trend of LULC in Kwande LG A revealed that built up areas increased considerably from 6.20% in 1988 to 21.31% in 2021. Grass land noticeably increased from 28.46% in 1988 to 31.57% in 2021. Water body increased from 0.74% in 1988 to  1.15% in 2021. Forested area decreased from 19.26% in1988 to 9.18%in 2021. Agricultural areas on the other hand decreased from 37.98%  in 1988 to 29.55% in 202. The magnitude of land use and land cover change throughout the course of the 33-year period revealed that  built up increased by 645.08 Sq. km, grass land increased by 93.77 Sq. km and water bodies increased by 12.39 Sq. km within 33 years’  period. Forested area decreased by -305.27 Sq. km, agricultural area also decreased by -277.89 Sq. km, bare land area lost during that  time was -3.31 Sq. km to other land uses. The loss of naturally forested areas in Kwande Local Government Area was linked to  anthropogenic activities resulted from increased in population of the area.Sustainable agriculture, reafforestation were recommended  for the area to restore the lost vegetation.