Author : Okwu-Delunzu V.U.,Iloeje F., Aniagolu C

A comparative assessment of temperature and rainfall as indicators to climate change was assessed for different land use /covers in Enugu Urban Environment. Four classified land use/covers maps for 1976, 1986, 2000 and 2011 were produced for the area, temperature and rainfall data gotten from the archive of Nimet Enugu. Remote sensing, geographical information technology and statistical tools were used to assess climate change within Enugu urban environment. LandSat satellite imagery was acquired from Global Land Cover Facilities (GLCF) and United States Geological Survey (U.S.G.S.).The land use classes were deduced from the raster data by supervised classification of true colour composites of pixels using the image processing software ilwis 3.4. Comparative analyses of the classified features made in order to detect climate change evidence in the study area over time. LandSat classified imagery show that landuse/landcover of the area has changed drastically between 1976 and 2011 (forest from 61% to 49%;built-up area 13% to 31%; farmland 23% to 12%; sand deposit 2% to 9%). Rainfall and temperature analysis shows a steady increase within the study period. Rainfall was correlated with landuse type it gave a positive correlation of +0.6. Recommendations made are; legislation on the use of urban lands, relevant bodies on climate change study should integrate remote sensing and GIS techniques in climate change monitoring and adaptation. Establishment of meteorological stations for climate data acquisition, with a view to identifying dynamic temporal climate elements which have been identified as a strong underlying dimension of climate change in the area pursued.

Affiliation :

Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Enugu State University of Science and Technology,Nigeria

Keywords : Climate change, Environment, landuse/cover, GIS, Remote sensing
Date : Sunday ,01 ,March ,2015

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