SPATIO-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF LAND USE/LAND COVER CHANGES (LULCC) IN EFON LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, EKITI STATE, NIGERIA

The earth's surface is being significantly altered by human activities resulting in an observable pattern of change in the Land Use Land Cover (LULC). The study examined Land Use and Land Cover Change (LULCC) pattern in Efon Local Government Area of Ekiti State, Nigeria over a period of thirty-six years (1985 and 2021), using remotely sensed satellite imageries and geospatial techniques and, covering four epochs. Five Land Use and Land Cover classes including, Built Up Areas (BU), Barren Land (BL), Forest Land (FL), Agricultural Land (AL) and Range Land (RL) were identified based on USGS/Anderson’s classification model with Efon Alaaye being the only town and headquarter of the Local Government. Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM+ and Landsat 8 OLI and TIRS images were acquired from United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS)for the supervised digital image classification using Arc GIS 10.8, OpenStreetMap (OSM) and Microsoft Excel. The results showed that between 1985 to 2021, Built Up Area (BU) increased by 60.88% from 311 to 795 hectares. There was decline in Forest Land (FL) by 26.63% from 5,635 to 4,134 hectares and Range Land (RL) by 7.90% from 8,9436 to 7,769 hectares but increase in Agricultural Land (AL) by 58.87% from 866 to 2,106 hectares and Barren Land (BL) by 14.94% from 2,527 to 2971 hectares. The creation of the Local Government Area in 1996 had remarkable effect on the growth of Built-Up Area (BU), Barren Land (BL) and Agricultural Land (AL), hence the utilization of Forest Land (FL) and Range Land (RL). The study recommended the need for continuous collection, analysis, interpretation and updating of data in the area for future development planning