ASSESSMENT OF VEGETATION COVER CHANGE OF KEBBE FOREST RESERVE, KEBBE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF SOKOTO STATE, NIGERIA USING REMOTE SENSING AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS) TECHNIQUES

Abstract

This study examined the change in vegetation cover (land use cover) of Kebbe forest reserve, Kebbe local government area of Sokoto state. The research was divided into phases comprising satellite image sourcing; corrections of the images and classification of the land cover types based on the result from the ground truthing of the Kebbe Forest reserve. Two research hypotheses and research objectives were formulated for the study. Satellite images of 5 thematic mapper (TM) of 2003 and 8 operational land imager thermal infrared sensor (OLI-TIRS) of 2018 were selected for this study. The data were haze corrected using pancroma software with the Dark Object Subtraction (DOS) algorithm. The highest increase in area among the LUC between the dates is the shrub land with about 20.42% increase, which is from 138.42 to 881ha and the least being the sparse forest with 1.35% increase, also from 1309.59 to 1359ha of the reserve. On the other hand, the highest decrease was experienced in the deep forest, with 24.89% of the decrease being from 1649.25 to 744ha, and the least being the bare land with 8.73% decrease, which is from 406.71to 89ha of the total reserve area. The results from this study indicate that the reserve of the Kebbe forest is not properly managed, and has also faced high degradation rate that affected the land use and land cover of the reserve. Forest conservation measures should be put in place to salvage the remaining forest land area. Further research into the causes of the forest degradation should be conducted.