Landscape Transformation and Urban Expansion in the Eleyele Dam Catchment: Multi-Temporal Gis and Remote Sensing Insights

In land use and land cover (LULC) change studies within urbanizing watersheds, LULC dynamics drive hydrological and ecological shifts. However, long-term, catchment-scale quantification in developing regions remains limited. We aim to quantify 43 years of LULC change (1981–2024) in the Eleyele Dam catchment. We processed Landsat imagery (USGS) with atmospheric correction, geometric registration, and supervised Maximum Likelihood classification in GIS; accuracy was validated with 150 reference points and assessed using overall accuracy and Kappa statistics. We observed changes across six classes: Water Bodies (217.69 → 29.34 ha), Forest (1205.58 → 121.97 ha), Light Vegetation (687.19 → 212.31 ha), Wetland (653.47 → 757.68 ha), Bare Ground (1422.12 → 1241.88 ha), and Built-up Area (334.04 → 2158.32 ha). Percentage changes were −86.5%, −89.9%, −69.1%, +15.9%, −12.7%, and +546.0%, respectively. This work contributes a four-decade, validated LULC time series and quantified change metrics for the Eleyele catchment, extending prior shorter-term studies and providing measurable evidence of a shift from semi-natural to predominantly urbanized landscape. The findings clarify rising hydrological pressure from rapid urban growth and support geospatially informed watershed management. The study is limited by reliance on optical Landsat data (cloud cover, sensor differences), suggesting integration of higher-resolution and radar data in future work.