Impacts of Climate Variability on Tuber Crops in Guinea Savanna Part of Nigeria: A GIS Approach

Abstract

The study developed a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) database and mapped inter-annual changes in tuber crop yield as a response to inter-annual rainfall variability in the Guinea Savanna ecological zone of Nigeria. It also related the spatiotemporal variability in rainfall with tuber yields. Two major tuber crops were used for this study (i.e. Cassava and Yam). Kriging and other GIS techniques were used for the spatial analysis. Also, correlation and regression analysis were carried out on the dataset. The study fund out that rainfall varies from one year to the other (550mm to 2987mm). The results showed that there were significant relationship between tuber yield and total rainfall (r= 0.68, at p<0.05 for cassava; and r= 0.62, at p<0.05 for yam). The study concluded that geospatial techniques are ample tools that should be explored further for realistic assessment of the effects on climate of farming activities.