Abstract
This study aims at assessing how riparian zones have been altered through various land use activities and the implications of its capacity to mitigate flood. The study focused mainly on examining the land use/land cover changes within the riparian zone over a period of 20 years. The vulnerability of the riparian zone to flood were analyzed using remote sensing datasets. Flood vulnerability models were created based on the elevation and land cover type. A Euclidean distance (700 m) was created using the shuttle radar topographical mapping (SRTM) digital elevation model (DEM) of the lake and its riparian zone. The flood attenuation (150 m buffer) and riparian habitat (500 m) zones (areas) within the riparian zone of the lake were then created using the extracted lake boundary. Landsat 7 (for 1999) and 8 (for 2019) covering both zones were classified using the Maximum Likelihood Classification method. The results revealed that the built-up area increased from 2.04 to 4.54 km2 between 1999 and 2019 while water body, grassland, and forest decreased from 0.05 to 0.04 km2, 0.37 to 0.12 km2 and 1.84 to 1.82 km2 over the period of the study. The results further show that about 18.9% of built-up areas were within the very high vulnerability zone of flood as of the year 2019. The results reveal that the riparian area cover is declining in the study area, despite its ecological services in reducing the effect of floods by slowing down runoff, trapping sediments and enhancing infiltration. The pattern of distribution of the land cover classes at different flood vulnerability levels within zones indicates that the more the alteration of both zones’ landscape, the more vulnerable they are to flood. The study concluded that there is a significant level of structural change of the riparian zone which increases its vulnerability level to flooding.
Highlights
Riparian zones are widely recognized as a bionomical transition zone of material and energy exchange between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (Tang et al 2014)
The total percentage (100%) of water body class was within low vulnerability level in 1999, while 2%, 36%, and 62% were within moderate, high and very high vulnerability levels respectively in 2019
The total percentage (100%) of water body class was within low vulnerability level in 1999, while 18.92% and 81.08% were within high and very high vulnerability levels respectively in 2019
Summary
Riparian zones are widely recognized as a bionomical transition zone of material and energy exchange between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (Tang et al 2014). Riparian zones act as an important interface between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems (Naiman and Decamps 1997), and provide ecological corridors for the migration of wildlife (Hilty and Merenlender 2004; Rodriguez‐Iturbe et al 2009). These zones provide a range of ecosystem functions and services, e.g., bank stabilization and protection, water. Flood can be regarded as an overflow or inundation that comes from a river or other body of water and causes or threatens damage It is a prominent and common natural disaster, irrespective of the state of human development and natural conditions (Agbola et al 2012). According to Orewole et al (2015) several studies have demonstrated that riparian habitats are very significant in water quality, flood and erosion control
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