Land use change is the exploitation of land cover through its conversion and modification over time primarily to meet human needs. The study aims to examine the primary drivers and implications of land use and land cover change in Ekwulobia with the view to understanding the drivers and implications of the observed changes. Data for the study were collected from both primary and secondary sources. The primary data were obtained via questionnaires. The study adopted multi-stage and random sampling techniques. Total of 398 copies of questionnaire on the drivers and implications of the land use and land cover change in Ekwulobia were administered at random to the respondents in the nine villages, while 386 were retrieved and used for analysis. Cronbach Alpha Value Tests was used to validate the reliability of the questionnaires. The validity tests revealed primary drivers (0.776), environmental implications (0.759) and socio-economic implications with 0.711 Alpha value. Results from the questionnaire analyses were summarized using the Relative Importance Index (RII) on five-point Linkert’s scale. The Multispectral Satellite Imageries of the study area (for 2004, 2014 and 2024) were downloaded from USGS Explorer. Ground truthing operations were further conducted to verify the identified features on the multispectral imageries. Image processing to enhance the quality of the Multispectral Imageries was done in ArcGIS 10.8 desktop. The classification accuracy for the three years under investigation showed overall accuracy of 84.52% (2004), 86.28% (2014) and 88.84% (2024). The Maximum Likelihood Classification using the Support Vector Machine classifier at 500 maximum number of samples per class shows that #Barren land which was 96.336 hectares in 2004, increased to 114.329 hectares in 2014 and 130.088 hectares in 2024. #Vegetation which was 946.368 hectares in 2004, decreased to 891.553 hectares in 2014 and 847.738 hectares in 2024. #Built-up area which was 467.016 hectares in 2004, increased to 503.838 hectares in 2014 and 531.892 hectares in 2024. The questionnaire analysis revealed government policies on land and development (0.965); flooding and erosion (0.988); and displacement of socio-economic activities (0.949) as the major driver, environmental and socio-economic implications of land use and land cover change in Ekwulobia. The study recommends amongst others that Government policies on land and development should make the preparation and approval of physical development plan that will guide physical development in Ekwulobia a priority.
Ijeomah et al. (Tue,) studied this question.