Land Use and Its Implication on Natural Environment of Donga LGA, Nigeria

The study assessed land use and land cover changes and its effect on the communities in southern Taraba specifically in Donga. The paper identify and delineate different LULC categories, evaluates the rate of change that occurred and examine the implication on incessant flooding using multi-temporal satellite imageries of three different time periods, i.e Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) of 2000, 2012 and 2016 acquired from USGS sites. Area calculations of the arc GIS 10.1 software were used to derive the trends, rates, and magnitude of changes while map overlay was employed for assessing the nature and location change. The images of the study area were categorized into five different classes namely water body, built up, vegetation, bare land and rock outcrop. The implication of LULC change on flooding incidence in the study area was analysed by an interaction with local communities through personal interaction with focus group and usage of questionnaire. The results reveal that barely two decades, built- up and bare land have been increased by 4% (137.7021 km2), and 12% (409.8324 km2) while vegetation, water body and rock outcrop have decreased by16% (541.1142 km2), 0.08% (2.5924 km2) and 0.1% (3.8279 km2) respectively. Based on the interview conducted, 93% of the respondents are attestants to the fact that flooding is on the increase and 47% affirmed that increase in rainfall intensity is the major cause. Even though only 8% of the respondents adduced flooding to change in land use and land cover, the analysed imageries show that between the spaces of 16 years, the present built up area is fifth times of the capture in the year 2000 and that 16% of the vegetation cover has disappeared for other use. The understanding of the intricacy of nature and the influence of land use and land cover change on the farming community is of necessity, more especially as the climate change and the government look inward to divert from mono economy. The dependency on land and land cover could increase in order to get out of this present recession as agricultural sector top the recovering agenda in the Nation.