Mining and its Implications on the Rural Peoples' Livelihood and Environment in Etche, South-South Nigeria using Multivariate and Geospatial Analyses

The study aimed at assessing the impacts of mining and other anthropogenic activities on the land-use, vegetation and livelihood in the Niger-Delta Region, Nigeria. It is hypothesized that the land use, floristic composition, and livelihood were significantly affected by mineral mining. GIS and Remote sensing were used to collect data, identify, and classify the landuse-landcover. On the other hand, the local people were also interviewed. In addition, reconnaissance survey and field data sampling were used to identify the plant species. GIS analyses tools, regression and RDA analyses where employed to analyze the data. The result revealed that oil mining activities, farming, and logging were the primary socioeconomic activities which have significant impacts on crude-oil spillage. The relationship between oil mining and fishing was significantly high (p = 0.002; R2 = 0.63). The trees were more vulnerable to the effects of the crude-oil spillage when compared with other plant functional groups. A net loss of about 15,500 US dollars per annual was recorded on the impacts of oil spill to the vegetation. However, with fewer grasses, about 50% of the vascular plant species were associated with the 0.5km buffer zone. Integration of geospatial and statistical analyses was very effective and successful in analyzing the impacts of socioeconomic activities on land use-land cover. The use of GIS should be further applied in studying the spatio-temporal pattern of basic facilities and species hotspots in the area as this would consolidate land use-cover conservation against future crude-oil pollution