analysis of land-use/land-cover change in zaria urban …

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ANALYSIS OF LAND-USE/LAND-COVER CHANGE

IN ZARIA URBAN AREA: TOWARDS ATTAINING

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

BY

1Solomon Dembo,

2Alhassan Dahiru Dan’arewa,

3Nuhu Abubakar

Abdullahi, 4Musa Clement Ndaks

, 5Garba Sylvester Birat

1,2,3 Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria

4Redarc Consultancy, Flat A12 Bamaiyi House No. 30 Sokoto Road, Kwangila, Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria

5Department of General Studies, School of Agricultural Studies, Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, Zaria, Kaduna State,

(Samaru Kataf Campus).

1Corresponding Author’s email: [email protected]

1Corresponding Author’s Phone number: 08038685215

International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 8, Issue 9, September-2019 ISSN 2278-7763

IJOART Copyright © 2019 SciResPub.

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Abstract

Land-use and Land-cover change are major issues in the studies of sustainable development

and integrated assessment of environmental problems. Information on the rate and kind of

changes in the use of land resources is essential for proper planning, management and to

regulate the use of such resources. This study assessed land-use and land-cover change

in Zaria urban area. A combination of remote sensing and geographic information system

(GIS) were employed for the study. The period covered is from 1986 to 2016. Four imageries

(Landsat TM 1986, Landsat TM 1996, Landsat ETM+ 2006 and Landsat TM 2016) were

compared to ascertain the rate and extent of change in the land-use and-land cover change of

the study area. Findings from the study revealed that Zaria urban area has experienced a

significant decrease in vegetation cover as a result of increase in land uses (residential,

commercial, industrial institutional, etc.) as well as increase in bare land (an indication

of desert encroachment) over these years. The decrease in vegetation cover poses a great

threat to sustainable development within and around Zaria urban centre.

Key Words: Land-use, Land-cover, Sustainable Development, Remote Sensing,

Geographic Information System (GIS).

Introduction

Land is a resource and it is the premise in which other resources are housed. Hence the need

to use land and its resources in a sustainable way cannot be overemphasize.

Land-use and Land-cover change is significant to a range of themes and issues central to the

study of global change. The alteration it effects on the surface of the earth hold major

implications for sustainable development and livelihood systems and contributes to changes

in the biogeochemical cycles of the earth (Turner, Sanderson, Fischer, Fresco, & Leemans,

2003).

A modern nation must have adequate information on complex interrelate aspects of its

activities in order to make decisions: Land-use is only one of such aspects, but knowledge

about land-use and land-cover has become increasingly important as a nation plans to

overcome the problems of haphazard, uncontrolled development, deteriorating environmental

quality, loss of prime agricultural lands, destruction of important wetlands, and loss of fish

and wildlife habitat- all of which are key to sustainable development. Land-use data are

needed in the analysis of environmental processes and problems that must be understood if

living conditions and standards are to be improved or sustained at current levels (Anderson,

2012)

Continuous increase in population and constant changes in the way man goes about his social

and economic activities has brought about changes in land-uses. These changes come with

a cost- conversion of farmland and forests to urban development reduces the amount of lands

available for food and timber production. Soil erosion, salinization, desertification, and other

soil degradations associated with intensive agriculture and deforestation reduce the quality of

land resources and future agricultural productivity (Saleh, Badr, Elbanna, & Shahata, 2014).

This, without gainsaying, poses a great threat to sustainability.



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Concept of Land-use and Land-cover

Land-cover and land-use are two different concepts. Land-cover emphasizes on land’s

‘natural properties’ and it is the synthetic reflection of various elements in the global

surface (Chenghu, 1999). Land-use emphasizes more on land’s ‘social properties’ and it is

the output of activities of man. Thus, land-use is a process of turning natural ecosystem into

social ecosystem and the process is a complicated procedure by the synthetic effect from

nature, economy and society (Chenghu, 1999). Land-use/land-cover being the new concepts

emerging with the remote sensing technology has become a crucial item of basic task in

identification and monitoring of urban environment. This is possible with the more thorough

development of remote sensing or classification techniques. Land-use/land-cover are

continuously changing both under the influence of man and nature resulting in various kinds

of impacts on the urban ecosystem (Rajan & Shibasaki, 1997). The most important factor in

the modification of the land-cover and its conversion is the human use component rather

than the natural changes (Turner, Sanderson, Fischer, Fresco, & Leemans, 2003). Changes in

land-cover cannot be understood without a better knowledge of the land-use changes that

drive them and their links to human causes. The linkages between the human

and biophysical causes or drivers to land degradation, land management and land-cover are

not sufficiently understood (Rajan & Shibasaki, 1997).

Remote sensing is a powerful technique for surveying, mapping and monitoring earth

resources and changes. This technology combined with GIS which excels in storage,

manipulation and analysis of geographic information and socio-economic data provide a

wider application (Medis & Wadigamangawa, 2007). Urban land is constantly and rapidly

changing due to various human development activities and natural conditions. Therefore, the

management of urban environment involves procedures of monitoring and modelling

which require reliable information base and robust analytical techniques. Conventional

surveying and mapping methods cannot deliver the necessary information in a timely

and cost-effective manner. Remote sensing and GIS given their cost-effective and

technological soundness are increasingly being used to develop useful sources of information

and to support decision-making in connection with a wide array of urban applications (Islam

& Ahmed, 2011). The urban environment given its heterogeneous landscape with highly

dynamic changes is challenging the applicability and robustness of these methods and

technologies. But with recent innovations in data management technologies and theories in

the wider areas, remote sensing and GIS have provided scientists with invaluable insights into

the study of urban environment (Wu, 2010).

Materials and methods

Zaria Urban area is located between 10◦57’36’’N to 11

◦15’32’’N and 7

◦39’00’’E to

7◦53’02’’E. The urban area is made up of Sabon Gari and Zaria local government areas and

some parts of Giwa Local government area like Shika about 7km from Ahmadu Bello

University main campus, Samaru.



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Zaria Urban Area is bounded by Kudan to the North, Igabi to the South, Soba to the East

and Giwa to the West. Zaria is about 26 km from Kudan, 50 km from Igabi, 40 km from Soba

and 29 km from Giwa.

In Zaria Urban Area, a railway line runs from the south-west cross river kubanni into the

town. It has siding at square 6027, and then bifurcates at square 6028 where it has a

station (Sabon Gari Railway Compound). A branch line runs north-west wards to Funtua,

while the other runs north-east across River Galma to Kano. All trains going to

Kano, Gusau and Malumfashi are diverted from Zaria junction that is why it is an important

nodal point for the railway system.

Similarly, the major roads (Kaduna, Sokoto, Bassawa and New Jos Roads) running south-

west wards, north-west wards, north wards and east wards links Zaria Urban Area to

important towns like Kaduna, Funtua, Kano and Jos which also makes it an important nodal

point for the road system. According to the existing Zaria Master Plan (1979) Zaria Urban

Area falls on the North-West axis, by road, connecting Lagos to Kano and part of Niger.



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Plate 1: Satellite imagery of Zaria Urban Area



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Plate 2: Map of Zaria Urban Area



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The land use pattern in Zaria urban area as at 2016 can be clearly seen from the plate below.

Plate 3: Land-uses of Zaria urban area (2016)



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In this study remote sensing, Google earth and GIS data were used. Imageries from Landsat

Thematic mapper, and Enhanced thematic mapper plus (ETM+) of the study years were

collected using path and row, 189 and 52 respectively. They were used to detect the land-use

and land-cover change pattern of the study area. These imageries were obtained from the

United States Geological Survey (USGS) website as standard products. Also to avoid the

impact of seasonal variation, all imageries were selected from the same season in such a way

that the cloud cover will not exceed 10%. The imageries are also of 30m spatial resolution

which makes it convenient for comparison of changes and pattern. The Google earth

imagery of Zaria urban area were obtained from Google Earth PRO 7.1 software, using Zaria,

Kaduna as the place to be searched. Also in order to obtain names of some prominent

place, the layer for the place was activated. The detailed descriptions of the characteristic of

the imageries used in this study are summarized in the table 1 below.

Table 1: List of satellite imageries collected for the study.

Satellite data Acquisition

date

Spatial

Resolution

Quality Path/Row Data

Source

Landsat TM 1986/6/8 30m 9 189/52 USGS

Landsat TM 1996/7/16 30m 9 189/52 USGS

Landsat ETM+ 2006/7/14 30m 9 189/52 USGS

Landsat TM 2016/5/3 30m 9 189/52 USGS

Google Earth 2016 - - - Google

Earth 7.1

The methodology incorporated in this study involve;

The use of four multi-temporal imageries that are remotely sensed i.e. Landsat thematic

mapper (TM) and enhance thematic mapper plus (ETM+) which were used to produce land

cover maps. Image classification was done using the Supervised Maximum Likelihood

Classification by extracting the information classes from a multi-band raster using spectral

signatures obtained from the sample, here the samples provide example for the classes (Built-

up, vegetation, bare land and water body) in the Landsat imageries so that the classification

tool will know how to classify the remaining pixel. Prior to the establishment of the

classification result, an accuracy assessment was done which involve the evaluation of the

classification to determine the quality of the classified image using reference data, as for this

study, the refence data that was used is the google imagery of the study area. Classification

results which are the outcome of image classification were used for the post

classification comparison which identified not only the amount and location of change but

also the nature of change, this will be done by overlaying the classified images, as

such, a multi-temporal map is created. The multi-temporal map will then quantify

to establish the change pattern of Zaria urban area from 1986 to 2016.

Four land cover types were used to classify the Landsat images for this study as shown in the

table below:



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Table 2: Land cover classification pattern for the study.

Land Cover Type Description

Built-up Residential, commercial, public, industrial, infrastructure,

recreational and other urban associates

Bare land Exposed soil, landfill site, rock outcrops and area of active

excavation

Vegetation Agricultural areas, forests, fallow land and others

Water body River, lakes, ponds and reservoirs

Adopted from Islam and Ahmed, (2011).

This will be used for change detection. The change detection that was used in this analysis is

the post classification comparison technique in which GIS overlay two or more independently

produced classified images in ARCGIS 10.3. The resulting maps will visually compare, and

change areas will be differentiated by the extent of the land cover class in the maps.

Results and Discussion

Zaria urban area, over the period of thirty years covered by this study has experienced

enormous change in its Land-use/Land-cover. The proportions of the land-cover change for

these years were found considerably significant. High proportions of changes in the built-up,

vegetation and bare land between the years were observed, while the water body shows very

little changes. The built-up land-cover shows an increase in area from about 1995.8ha in the

year 1986 to 4472.1ha in 2016 while the vegetation land-cover shows a decrease from about

38245.1ha in 1986 to 33156ha in 2016, bare land-cover shows an increase from about

2347.2ha in 1986 to 4960ha in 2016. The remaining land-cover which is the water body

shows very little changes from 1027.4ha in 1986 to 1040ha in 2016.



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Plate 4: Land Sat TM (1986), Land Sat TM 1996 (1996), Land Sat ETM+ (2006) and Land Sat TM (2016)



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Plate 5: Land-use/Land-cover analysis for Zaria urban area (1986-2016)

Source: Land Sat TM (1986), Land Sat TM 1996 (1996), Land Sat ETM+ (2006) and Land Sat TM (2016)



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Table 3: Proportion of land cover change in the study area (1986-2016)

Landuse/Landcover

classes

1986 1996 2006 2016

Area (Ha) Area (%) Area (Ha) Area

(%)

Area (Ha) Area (%) Area (Ha) Area (%)

Built up area 1995.8 4.58 2988.9 6.85 4110.7 9.42 4472.1 10.25

Vegetation 38245.1 87.69 36764.6 84.29 35308.2 80.95 33142.9 75.99

Bare land 2347.2 5.38 2829.9 6.49 3157.8 7.24 4960 11.37

Water body 1027.4 2.36 1032.1 2.37 1038.8 2.38 1040.5 2.39

Total 43615.5 100 43615.5 100 43615.5 100 43615.5 100

Figure 1: Distribution of Land-Use/Land-Cover Changes Trend (1986-2016)



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From the table above it reveals that there is a great trend of land-cover change observed in the

study area within the period, the chart was drawn in order to show a strong graphical

representation of the trend in each of the four classes of land cover.

The rate of land-cover change was calculated for the four classes of land cover change i.e. built-

up, vegetation, bare land and water body even though water body seems not to have a

significant change while the land-covers change for the built-up, vegetation and bare land-cover

are relatively significant within the period (1986-2016).

Composite Analysis of Land-Use/Land-Cover Change in the Study Area (1986-2016)

The analysis of the proportion of the land-use/land-cover change for the years between 1986

and 2016 was performed using vector overlay. In order to have a clear understanding and a

vivid visualization of the overlay, analysis of the four land-use/land-cover study years were

used and the overlay analysis was done for the built-up land-cover.



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Plate 6: Zaria urban area overlay map of built-up land cover



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Conclusion

This paper analyzed the land-use and land-cover change of Zaria urban area. Empirical data

has shown that there has been a tremendous loss of the natural vegetation covers to other

land-uses and also, to desertification- manifesting in the increase in built up areas and bare

land-cover respectively. The water body also experience slight changes.

The trend shows that urbanization brought along with it, the demand for space. The process

of urbanization has continued to impact on land-use pattern in urban areas, thereby changing

existing land-use which affects agricultural areas (Saleh, Badr, Elbanna, & Shahata, 2014).

Furthermore, the pressure put on land and water by the urbanization process puts urban and

peri-urban food production at risk (Eaton & Hilhorst, 2003) (FAO, 2012)- a negative effect

on sustainable development.

Legislation for urban growth boundary (UGB) is pertinent to curtail the challenges posed by

unplanned urban growth and the encroachments of cities upon the peri-urban land-uses and

land-cover, at the same time slow down sub-urbanization, enhance infill development, create

economy of scale for the city’s self-reliance, and reduce auto use- all of which are sine qua

non to attaining sustainable development. It is often said that sustainable development is that

which balance the needs of all people within the same generation and among generations;

therefore, controlling city growth and curtailing desertification are non-negotiable if all

persons must enjoy a good life now and in the future.



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