Assessing the Spatio-Temporal Pattern of Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Osun Drainage Basin, Nigeria

Over the years, Osun drainage basin has witnessed tremendous increase in population, and urbanization that have changed the landscape of the area. This study evaluated the spatio-temporal pattern of land use/land cover change (LULC) in the study area, and made hydrological inferences. Landsat imageries were acquired from USGS-EROS satellite image database for the period 1984, 2000 and 2015, while the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) was obtained from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). Supervised image classification using the Maximum Likelihood Algorithm in Erdas Imagine was adopted to classified the land use/land cover of the study area into seven classes. Elevation, aspect and slope of the study area were processed from DEM using ArcGIS. Modules for Land Use Change Evaluation (MOLUSCE) plugin in QGIS was used to simulate the basin future LULC change, using change driving factors of population, elevation, aspect and slope of the study area. There was about 234% increase in built up areas and 89.22% in crop/shrubs between 1984 and 2015. The most significant decrease in LULC occurred in forest (58.75%) and wetland (84.69%) during this period. The predicted future LULC change suggests that only about 12% of the basin will remain under forest cover by the year 2046. The results underscored the increasing anthropogenic activities in the basin that influenced recharge rate, surface runoff, incidences of soil erosion, etc., in Osun drainage basin. The planting of the lost native trees was recommended for the sustainability of the basin’s ecosystem