Determining the Rate and Pattern of the Spatio-Temporal Growth of Kaduna Metropolis, Kaduna State Nigeria

Abstract

Kaduna is experiencing a rapid spatial growth mainly due to high rate of urbanization and economic development. Information concerning this growth is required for proper planning. Therefore, this paper determined the rate and pattern of the spatial growth of Kaduna metropolis between 1973 and 2009. In order to achieve the aim of this study, Landsat MSS imagery; Landsat TM; Landsat ETM+ and Nigeriasat-1 image captured in 1973, 1990, 2001 and 2009 respectively were used for the study. Visual interpretation method was used to sort the various datasets into landuse and cover classes. The built-up area was extracted and the rates of growth between the periods 1973-1990; 1990-2001 and 2001-2009 were ascertained. The built-up areas for the four time period were overlain in order to derive the urban growth map. The Shanoon’s entropy technique was adopted to determine the extent of landscape disorganization or pattern of growth. The results reveal that the built-up area increased from 6,410.4ha in 1973 to 19,611.5ha in 2009. The city was growing at the rate of 5.72% per annum within the period studied.  The results also show that the area towards the southern part of the River Kaduna was growing at a higher rate (11.24%) compared with the northern part (3.71%).The southern part of the Metropolis had higher entropy value for the four time periods however, the difference in entropy was higher for the northern zone. The paper recommends amongst others that: i) the developers should lay more emphasis on vertical growth; ii) adequate planning to accommodate the rapid growth by developing more layouts to keep pace with the high growth rate.