Landuse Change

The impacts and drivers of global landuse change has been the major concern for scientists over several decades. Increasing demand for environmental recourses by a rapidly growing population, coupled with fast urbanization and industrialization, has resulted in landuse changes all over the world. Consequently, scholars and many international organisations have been investigating the impacts of natural and anthropogenic activities on land resources. The scientific studies of the landuse change are not confined only to the international level, because man-environmental relationship can be said to have the same origin as man first appearance on earth. Regional and local studies have shown that in the last three hundred (300) years, the impacts

During the past few decades, change in landuse; forest degradation and biodiversity loss have been the foremost environmental problems confronting the Niger Delta of Nigeria. These environmental problems have led to losses of biodiversity, arable land, lives and properties. Landuse change in the Delta is a critical issue, though political and economic issues take center stage in national subject matter nowadays, and environmental degradation in the region is yet to be seen as a problem. Hence, demand for land resources by a fast-growing population, together with pressures from rapid urbanization, agricultural land expansion and oil production infrastructure have had a large impact on environmental resources in the region (Fasona et al. 2011). Unfortunately, these resources are exploited without efficient

2011). Other recent studies have found that the issues of land conflict in the Delta are a result of change in landuse in the region (Onojeghuo and Blackburn 201; Ugoh and Ukpere 2012). These imply that landuse issues in the Niger Delta is a complex problem, factors of which is beyond impact from oil production alone, but more as a result of unsustainable use of land resources. In spite of the impacts of oil exploration activities and production infrastructures in the region, vast deforestation resulting from commercial logging, firewood collection by local people, clearing of the forest for agricultural purposes, and urban encroachment on farmland/forest constitute serious environmental problems in the Niger Delta. Despite these environmental challenges, little research has been conducted in term of assessing the rate of occurrence, types and drivers of environmental change, and examining social and health implications of change in the Niger Delta. One of the reasons for this may be due to lack of accurate data and insecurity, which are militating against qualitative research work and appropriate decision making, in respect of environmental problems in the region. Therefore, this research attempts to use remote sensing to