Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Land Use Change in Uyo Urban, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

The increasing population size of cities and the physical expansion of the built-up area beyond the city limits as well as rising demand for more land for various purposes induce changes in urban land-use. This study therefore evaluates the spatio-temporal changes of land uses in Uyo urban. The study utilizes Geographic Information System (GIS); where land use maps of Uyo were produced from Landsat ETM imagery of 2003, 2012 and 2021 using Erdas imagine and ArcGIS softwares. Post classification and change detection analysis for the three years was used to depict changes in identified land uses. The results indicate that in 2003 agricultural land use occupied an area of 37.307 sq.km while residential land use occupied an area of 50.494 sq.km. In 2012, agricultural land use reduced to 25.347 sq.km while residential land use increased to 62.879 sq.km. Furthermore, by 2021, agricultural lands use further indicated drastic reduction occupying an area of 6.207 sq.km while residential land use indicated remarkable increase to 73.469 sq.km. Between 2003 and 2012, residential land uses increased by 8.88 sq.km translating into 15.4 per cent within 10 years and 1.5 per cent per annum; whereas agricultural land use decreased annually by -2.5 per cent. Other land uses such as institutional, commercial and transportation land uses also increased, while forest and water bodies also decreased within the years. It is recommended that periodic monitoring of the land use should be encouraged to ascertain the pattern of changes in order to curtail negative impacts on the environment.