Assessment of some soils land cover changes in Gashaka Gumti National Park, Taraba State, Northeastern Nigeria

Abstract

Land cover change has always had a central role in land change science. This central role is largely the result of the possibilities to map and characterize land cover based on observations and remote sensing. This paper argues that more attention should be given to land use and land functions and linkages between these. Consideration of land functions that provide a wide range of goods and services makes more integrated assessments of land change possible. The increasing attention to multifunctional land use is another incentive to develop methods to assess changes in land functions. The study was conducted in 2020 to evaluate land cover changes of some soils in Gashaka Gumti National Park (GGNP) Taraba State, North East Nigeria. Two hundred hectares (200ha) for GGNP were selected. Supervised system of classification were used, before the pre-processing and classification of satellites imageries began, field survey was performed throughout the study area using Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment and a Canon EOS 3000D 18.0 MP Digital SLR Camera + 18-55mm EF-S f/3.5-5.6 Lens. The field survey was conducted in order to obtain accurate location for each land cover class, which was used in the classification scheme. Four land covers were identified on the ground; their coordinates was recorded and subsequently used to trace the same points on the images, these were then identified in the image as bare surface/Eroded land, Dense Vegetation, Water body/Wet land and Sparse Vegetation respectively. Administered image classification technique studies of 2010 to 2015 and 2010 to 2020 imageries indicated changes in land cover classes. The Bare surface/Eroded land and Dense Vegetation land cover land decreased in size by 7 and 29 percent, while Water body/Wetland and Sparse Vegetation cover increased in size by 26 and 47 percent respectively.