Multi-Temporal Remote Sensing of Landuse Dynamics in Zaria, Nigeria

This study assesses the impact of growth of Zaria town on the changing pattern of the different landuse/land cover types within and around the town, using Remote Sensing and GIS techniques. Zaria is witnessing rapid rate of urbanization as a consequence of the establishment of the Ahmadu Bello University at Zaria in 1962. It is one of the fastest growing settlements in northern Nigeria. The increasing population from the University community has led to serious competition for land among different landuse types. Multi-temporal satellite imageries for three and half decades (1973, 1990, 1999 and 2006) were used to assess the impact of the growth of Zaria town on the changing pattern of the different landuse/land cover (LULC) types using Remote Sensing GIS techniques. The images were transformed, enhanced, sampled and re-sampled, classified and crossed for change detection. Results of the analysis showed that although there are year to year variations in area under each landuse type, net change detection showed that built up area has been on the increase each year encroaching on scrubland, farmlands and fadama to shrink. Keywords: change detection, image crossing, multi-temporal, multi-spectral