Urban Growth Influence on Land Cover Dynamics across Obio/Akpor Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined urban growth and land cover dynamics across Obio/Akpor, Local Government Area Rivers State. Landsat images were derived for the period of 1986 which was regarded as the base year, 2010 and 2018. The images were imported and analyzed using the spatial analysis tools in the ArcGIS environment to determine the extent of growth induced by change in features (water bodies, swamp forest, other forest, and Anthropogenic/built-up) coverage across the region. Findings revealed that there was a continuous decrease in the areas covered by water bodies, swamp forest, and forest between the periods of 1986 through 2010. It also revealed an increase in anthropogenic activities during the same periods of 1986 through 2018. As at 2018, as compared to 1986 which serves as the base year, there was a noticeable decrease in land area covered by water, in the tune of 13.946 sq km in 2018 as against 20.433 sq km in 1986 amounting to 68 percent decrease in surface covered by water bodies. Also, as at 2018, as compared to 1986 there is a noticeable decrease in the surface covered by swamp and other forest types in the tune of 18.102 and 99.693 sq km  respectively as compared to 4.,986 and 17.498 sq km of surface cover respectively. On the other hand anthropogenic altered surfaces had a level of increase in the area covered by Anthropogenic/built-up developmental activities as at 2018 amounting to a tune of 14.399 sq km  of surface area altered by anthropogenic activities as at 2018 as compared to 38.267 sq km  of surface cover altered by human activities as at 1986 which when compared gave an increase in area covered by anthropogenic activities indicating an increase of over 100 percent between the base year of 1986 through 2018.