Effects of Urban Land Use Change on Selected Public Utilities for Sustainable Development in Akure, Nigeria

Abstract

Urban landuse change is one of the main driving forces of global environmental change. It is central to the sustainable development debate. The aim of this research is to examine the effects of urban landuse and its impact on selected public utility services in Akure with a view to improve strategies to protect these utilities for sustainable development. The research was conducted using remote sensing, Geographical information System and questionnaire to collect the required data for the purpose of fulfilling the objectives of this study. In this study of analyzing the urban landuse change, 2010 and 2018 IKONOS are used in a post classification comparison analysis to map the landuse changes and identify the conversion process in Akure. The landuse change statistics results obtained revealed that residential landuse has changed rapidly for the periods (2010-2018). The results also show increase in commercial landuses between the same periods. The results of the analysis reveal that the built-up area has been growing rapidly for the periods (2010-2018). Findings show that, housing provision (residential), business purpose (commercial) and educational (institution) are the major causes of land use change in the study areas. To reduce the effect of land use expansion in the study areas, policy measures were recommended which include regulating the growth and spread of development, regional development programs. In our opinion, the information provided by these technologies could help city planners and policy makers to attain and sustain future urban development.