An Assessment of the Effects of Flood on Agricultural Production in Auyo Local Government Area of Jigawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

Within the past decades, the impact of climate conditions is evident on crop productions across the Nigeria’s different regions. Between the years 2021 and 2022 Nigeria witnessed one of its worst floods in the last decade as hundreds of villages and urban centres were submerged in waters, displacing over 2.4 million people. These events had negative impacts on crop yield. Crop yield is the product of both growth and development. Thus, this study attempted to investigate the effects of flood on agricultural production in Auyo Local Government Areas of Jigawa State, Nigeria spanning a period of 30 years (1993-2022), with the aimed of conducting a land-use and land-cover change of the study area; analyze the temporal trends of rainfall in the area of study; examining the yields of agricultural production in the area and to establish the relationship between agricultural yields and flood occurrence in the Auyo Local Government Area. Thus, both primary and secondary sources of data were employed in this study. In view of this, Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) of 2002 and Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data of 2022 where used. In order to examine the trend in rainfall and agricultural yields series, 5-year running mean and linear trend lines was calculated and plotted using Microsoft Excel Statistical Tool. The rainfall and agricultural yields series were also sub-divided into 5-year non-overlapping sub-periods and Cramer’s test was then used to compare the means of the sub-periods (5-years) with the mean of the whole record period (30 years). The relationship between the flood and agricultural yields were tested using R statistical analysis. The study revealed that built-up increased from 14% in 2002 to 19% in 2022. Bare lands occupied about 50km2 of the total area examined in 2002, but decreased to about 44km2 in 2022. In addition, the water body decreased from about 172km2 in 2002 to 155km2 in 2022. Besides, the positive nature of relationships between rice yields and flood occurrences indicated a significant degree of relationship at 95% confidence level. In view of this, it was recommended among other measures, the need for the development of a Response Farming Technique and longitudinal approach for comprehensive measures to address the shock and destruction that comes with re-occurrence of flood.