IMPACTS OF LAND USE CHANGE AND CLIMATE CHANGE ON FISH SPECIES IN NIGERIA FROM 1981 TO 2022: BASED ON AUTOREGRESSIVE DISTRIBUTED LAG APPROACH

The study assessed the impacts of land use change and climate change on fish species in Nigeria from 1981 2022 based on Autoregressive Distributed Lag Approach. The study adopted a historical survey design using time series data spanning from 1981 to 2022. Data for the study were collected from the archive of National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), NIMET, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and various editions of Nigeria National Biodiversity Report. Data for the study were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean, maximum and minimum fish species and Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL). The result of the analysis revealed mean land use change, rainfall, temperature relative humidity and were 161334.6 sq/km, 1266.28mm, 27.23515oC, 81.3% respectively. While fish species had a mean value 476.50 species. The result of Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test for unit root indicated that all the variables were found to be integrated of order zero except temperature that was found to be integrated of one and became stationary on first differencing. The result further shows that the computed statistics of fish (10.34262) was greater than the upper bound critical values at 0.05 levels. Therefore, co-integration exists among the variables which implied a long run relationship exists among land use change, climate change and fish species in Nigeria. Based on the confirmation of long run relationship among land use change, climate change and fish species, ARDL approach was further applied. The result of the ARDL revealed that there is a short and long run impact of land use change and climate change on fish species in Nigeria. The study therefore recommends that the federal government should provide strong adaptive strategies and capacity such as construction of receiving dams to mitigate the effects of a changing climate such as flooding which may affect the fish species among others.