Impacts of Land use and Land cover Change and Rainfall on Flood Occurrence in Bosso and Chanchaga LGAs of Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

In recent times, flood occurrences have become an annual phenomenon resulting to irreplaceable loss of lives and properties. Land use and land cover changes are important for identifying long-term landscape effects caused by natural processes and anthropogenic pressure. Associated with post flood events, is the outbreak of diseases, pollution of the human environment and destruction of basic infrastructure. This research utilized both primary and secondary data, the primary data include geographic coordinates and personal observation while the secondary data is satellite imageries between (2003-2023) and 30m DEM. Geospatial techniques was used to analyze the data. Supervised classification scheme was for the analysis using ArcGIS to monitor the changes and other factors responsible for flood occurrence. Finding shows that built up areas increased from 71.55 km2 (4.31%) in 2003 to 296.87 km2 (17.90%) in 2023. The result from the classified DEM also, indicates that about 329.62 square kilometer (19.87%) of the area is on lower elevation which is evidence of recurrent flooding in the study area. 406.47 square kilometer (24.51%) are on high-risk areas, moderate risk areas and 407.49 square kilometer (24.57%) are low risk areas while 331.18 square kilometer (19.97%) is on high elevation, indicating no risk areas. Findings also shows that slope, hillshade plays a significant role on flood occurrence. The findings are important to better understand ways towards sustainable management of natural resources as well as efficient methods to study these processes.