Analysis of Land Use Land Cover Changes Using Remote Sensing Data and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) at an Urban Set up of Damaturu, Nigeria

Change detection is useful in many applications related to land use and land cover change (LULCC), such as shifting cultivation and landscape changes. Land degradation and desertification. Remote sensing technology has been used for the detection of the changes in land use land cover in Damaturu town Nigeria. The main objectives of this research is to derive the land use/cover change map of Damaturu town from 1986 to 2017 and to quantify land use/ land cover change in the study area. Methodology employed while carry the research includes three satellites images for the year 1986, 1998 and 2017 were downloaded from USGS websites and used for detecting the land cover changes. Ground truth points were collected using google images and used for verification of image classifications. The accuracy of images classification was checked using ground truth point which showed the overall accuracy of 84.6% and a kappa coefficient of 0.89 which indicated that the method of classification was accurate. In the process of the research work, an increased was recorded in the built-up area which rose from 7.2% to 22.0%, open space increased from 10.8 to 22.8%, vegetation from 4.0% to 9.7%, water bodies from 0.0% to 0.1% while agricultural land decreased from 78% to 45.4% due to increase in interest of building as a result of the expansion of the town. The study arrived at the conclusion that there has been a significant land use change due to increase in population and development interest in built up areas which resulted in increased of amount of agricultural land being converted to build up areas over the period of 31 years.