Geospatial Assessment of Land Use and Land Cover Dynamics and Perceptions of Farmers in Gaya Local Government, Kano State, Nigeria

Abstract

Land use and land cover (LULC) changes have been one of the most immense and perceptible transformations of the earth’s surface. Evaluating land use/land cover change at varied spatial scales is imperative in wide range of perspectives such as environmental conservation, resource management, land use planning and sustainable development. This study looked at the use of GIS tools and the perception of registered farmers for the assessment of land use and land cover changes between 1986 and 2019 with a view to facilitate effective planning in Gaya Local Government Area of Kano State and environ. Supervised classification method with maximum likelihood classifier was adopted for the study. Results revealed that there had been substantial changes in the land use and land cover during the period. The results revealed that built up area increased with only 80.83 hectares, Agricultural land had increased with 2,275 hectares, Dense vegetation has decreased with 1,315.53 hectares, open field had decreased with 1,049.31 hectares. However, the perception of farmers showed results from spatial and farmers’ view analyses confirmed a general increase in agricultural lands from 1986 to 2002 (1936.09ha) and 2002 to 2019 (338.51ha) as was confirmed by the respondents. More participants showed little intentions of changing their farming status owing to gains and family supports derived from farming in the study area