Land Use Dynamics of Urban Change in the Lagos-Ogun Urban Fringe, Southwest Nigeria
Abstract
Conversion of various land use types to urban landwhich leads to urban expansion has been very rapid globally in the last few decades. Lagos can be described as one of the cities mostly affected by extensive urban expansion in Nigeria. Urban sprawl in Lagos States is witnessed more prominently in the towns located around the Lagos-Ogun boundary. Interestingly, previous studies of urban land use change in the region either concentrated on Lagos State or Ogun State with no particular attention to the development at the Lagos-Ogun urban fringe. A study of Land use change along Lagos-Ogun boundary will reveal the dynamics of urban land use which can assist to identify urban planning solutions for a resilient and sustainable urban development. This study therefore investigates land use dynamics of urban change in the local government areas along Lagos-Ogun boundary at five epochs (1984, 2001, 2013, 2018 and 2020). The maximum likelihood algorithm was adopted in processing acquired Lands at images of the study area to six classes of dense urban, moderate urban, vegetation mangrove, water-body and wetland. Image processing was done using ENVI software while processed images were imported to ArcGIS for analysis. Total and annual change in land use types were determined. The six land use classes were later regrouped into three from where further analysis of land use change were carried out. Results showed that annual rate of urban change between 1984 and 2020 as well as 2018 and 2020 were 63.28 km2 and 317.99 km2 respectively much higher than rate of change in Lagos. Results also showed that urban land use increase by 2278.02 km2 between 1984 and 2020. It is recommended that a uniform urban planning policy and decentralized planning authorities can assist in ensuring a resilient and sustainable urban development in the area.
