Proportion of Degraded Land over the Total Land Area of Gombe State, Nigeria

Abstract

Land Degradation is a complex field of study because it’s characterized by participation of climatic, ecological, geographical, and social fields of study. It pointed at long-term decline of natural productiveness of land from the processes of climatic variations and unsustainable man-environment relationship. It’s therefore vital to monitor this phenomenon to inform decision making in providing mitigation measures to ensure sustainable land use. It’s in that regard, that this paper aim to assess the implementation of SDG target 15.3, to determine the extent of degraded area in Gombe State for the period of 2001-2015. The research was conducted in Trends.Earth tool where ESA-CCI land cover, AVHRR/MODIS, and soil grid datasets were used for separate change detection analysis of land cover, land productivity and soil organic carbon Stock respectively. The information from the three sub-indicators were combined and derived the degraded land area. The result appears that the extent of degraded land occupied 12,952.3 sq.km traced to about 72.2% of the state land area. Areas with stable condition account for 4,180.4 sq.km equivalent to 23.3% of the state area. The extent of land areas with improved conditions covered 780.9 sq.km and 4.4% of the state land area. The paper recommend nature-based solutions to reverse and restore part of the degraded land for better ecosystem services.