LAND USE DYNAMICS ANALYSIS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PLANNING USING GEO-INFORMATICS TECHNIQUES: CASE STUDY OF OGBOMOSO TOWN, NIGERIA
Abstract
Land use and Land cover mapping is an important task to conserve natural resources and to recommend suitable management practices. Understanding land use dynamics will help countries in land management thus preserving their natural resources. Geo-Informatics has been increasingly used for mapping land use and land cover due to specific characteristics of remotely sensed data such as resolution, accessibility to remote areas and faster interpretation with higher degree of objectivity and reproducibility. This study thereby mapped land use dynamics of Ogbomosho North Local Government area using Geo-informatics techniques between year 1984 and 2016. ArcGIS software package was used for the supervised classification in the study. The total area covered by the assessed land is about 253 Km2. The classification result of 1984 imagery showed that water body occupied 1.2% of the study area; shrub, 34.4%; arable land, 57.8%; built-up, 6.4% and bare land, 0.2% of the study area resulting into decrease in year 2000 and year 2016. The maps generated showed increase in water buddies, built-up area, pave and rocky areas and in vegetal and in other agriculture land, but decrease in forest land depicting loss of agricultural land, modification and alterations in the land use/land cover changes over time.