NSTUDY AREA Plateau State STUDY OF LANDCOVER CHANGE IN YELWA-HEIPANG AREA OF PLATEAU STATE, NORTH-CENTRAL NIGERIA: A GEOINFORMATICS APPROACH

This study is a research programme carried out to detect the change in land use/land cover of Yelwa-Heipang area of Plateau State, North Central Nigeria. It lies within the South-Eastern part of the Jos-Plateau. It is about 40km South of Jos city. It is located between latitude 9˚35'16.65"N, longitude 8˚52'29.91"E and Latitude 9˚38'38.92"N, longitude 8˚57'03.87"E (Naraguta topomap, sheet 168S.E). Two sets of Landsat images of 1975, 1986 and NigeriaSat-X image of 2012 were subjected to various image processing techniques and a supervised classification was carried out on the various images using ILWIS (Integrated land and water information system) software. The classification scheme used are bare-surface, built-up, farmland and vegetation. A follow up field work was carried out to confirm the results of the classification. The results were subjected to various statistical analyses and it shows natural vegetated area coverage increased from 5.80sqkm in 1975 to 18.47sqkm in 1986 and later reduced to 16.85sqkm in 2012. Non-vegetated area which comprised built-up area, farmlands and bare surface, decreased from 42.2sqkm in 1975 to 33.82sqkm in 1986, then to 35.86sqkm in 2012.The rate of change o