Analysis of Land Use and Land Cover Change in Oil Palm Producing Agro-Ecological Zones of Nigeria

Abstract

Land-cover change has many environmental, physical, and socioeconomic significances. Therefore, the study investigated the consequence of Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) change on vegetation indices in oil palm producing Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs) of Nigeria between 1989 and 2019 (30 years). Multistage sampling technique was used to sample 18 communities (six communities per each AEZ) that are known for oil palm production in the study area. Image processing and Geographical Information System (GIS) analysis was carried out. The result revealed that in the freshwater swamp AEZ, there was declining in areas covered by dense vegetation (72%) and wetland receded by 100% in the last 30 years. In the guinea savannah AEZ, the dense vegetation declines by 56.11% while built-up land and agricultural land increase by 169.06% and 17.98% respectively in the last 30 years. In the rainforest AEZ, there was 1689.43% increase in areas covered by sparse vegetation against 50.94% decline in dense vegetation. The study recommends that government and Non-Governmental Organizations should assist in formulating environmental policies that will protect the ecosystem in the study area.