Assessment of Deforestation in Bali Local Government Area of Taraba State, Nigeria, using Geospatial Techniques

Abstract

Deforestation is one of the leading environmental threat which causes a lot of negative impact to the environment resulting from excessive logging of trees, population growth and urbanization, bush fire, agricultural expansion and traditional medicine, lumbering and overgrazing for economic and other uses. The research aimed at assessing the level of deforestation at different epochs in the study area. It was achieved by performing Land use/ Land Cover for multiple time period using maximum likelihood algorithm. It also determined the rate of changes that occurred during the epoch, and it also assessed the level of deforesting. The methodology involves acquiring satellite imageries for multiple time periods, thus Landsat 7 ETM of 2010 and Landsat 8 OLI of 2015, 2020 and 2024 were employed. The satellite imageries were processed in ArcGIS, Land use Land Cover Classes were classified in to six different land cover classes, thus water Bodies, less dense vegetation, dense vegetation, built up areas, bare surface area and others. Image classification was used to detect alteration in land cover types. Area for land cover classes for the various epoch, 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2024 and percentage changes were obtained. Results obtained shows loss of vegetation cover by -63% from 2010 to 2024, while built up area, bare land, others were increasing as a result of population expansion. The loss of vegetation cover was as a result of urbanization, economic and agricultural expansion as a result of increase in population. It provided valuable insights into the dynamics of deforestation in the study area and recommended the integration of GIS and remote sensing technique to be employed to determine the causes of deforestation, its effect and how to mitigate it for sustainable environmental development.