Human Adaptation to Land Use and Climate Change in Gunu and Its Environs, in Shiroro Area of Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

The global understanding on the dynamics of land use land cover change has been established to trigger several environmental issues at all scales with climate change inclusive. As a consequence, an insight into how humans have adapted to these changes has become extremely important, particularly at a local scale, where the adaptive capacity may be low or inadequate. Gunu was considered as a case study in Niger State, Nigeria with the aim of examining land use land cover change of the area using geospatial techniques as well as the trend of climate vagaries. Landsat images of 1990, 2006, and 2015 were obtained from the USGS. Climatic trends were established using 1975 to 2014 data (rainfall and temperature) acquired from NiMET. The result obtained from the Landsat imageries shows that within the time period, vegetation decreased by 35%, while built up areas, farmlands and bare surfaces increased by 20%, 8% and 6% respectively. The rainfall and temperature of the area show increasing trend with means of 1200mm and 27.75 °C respectively. The agricultural implications for human adaptation include momentary disengagement from farming by 75% of the respondents and the combined adaptation options by most of the farmers. This was evidenced by the high acceptance values of most of the adaptation options (i.e. farmers’ adaptation actions ranges between 56% and 76%). The outcome of the research suggested that climate friendly practices such as conservation agriculture (CA) should be encouraged in the area by relevant stakeholders. Also a need to promote sustainable land management on a local scale and community land use planning and action should be implemented and strengthened to address climate change in the study area while scaling up the people’s adaptation.