




































Asian Review of Environmental 

and Earth Sciences 
ISSN: 2313-8173 
Vol. 1, No. 1, 8-15, 2014 

http://www.asianonlinejournals.com/index.php/AREES 

 
 

 

 

 

 

8 

 

The Dynamics of Land Use Land Cover Change: Using 

Geospatial Techniques to Promote Sustainable Urban 

Development in Ilorin Metropolis, Nigeria 
 

Suleiman, Y. M.
1
 --- Saidu, S.

2
 --- Abdulrazaq, S. A.

3
 --- Hassan, A.B

4 
 --- Abubakar, A.N

5
 

 
1,2,3,4

Laboratory of Remote Sensing and Meteorology,Department of Geography, Federal University of Technology, Minna, 

Nigeria 
5
Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Niger State Polytechnic, Zungeru, Nigeria 

 

Abstract 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License 

Asian Online Journal Publishing Group 
 
1. Introduction 

Studies have shown that there remain only few portions of the landscapes on the earth that is still in their natural 

state. Due to anthropogenic activities, the Earth surface is being significantly altered in some manner and man’s 

presence on the Earth and his use of land has had a profound effect upon the natural environment thus resulting into 

an observable pattern in the land use and land cover over time. Land is becoming a scarce resource due to immense 

agricultural and demographic pressure. Hence, information on settlement growth i.e. consumption of new land with 

each unit of population growth and possibilities for their optimal use is essential for the selection, planning and 

implementation of land use schemes to meet the increasing demands for basic human needs and welfare. This 

information also assists in monitoring the dynamics of settlement expansion resulting out of changing demands of 

increasing population. Studies on settlement expansion have become a central component in current strategies for 

managing land as a resource and in monitoring environmental changes. 

There has been tremendous growth and development in Ilorin, the Kwara State, capital in some aspect like 

building construction, road construction, deforestation and many other anthropogenic activities, since its inception in 

1967 like every other state capital in Nigeria. The aforementioned growth have led to increased consumption of land 

as well as modification and alterations in the originality of her land composition both land use and land cover over 

time without any comprehensive and pressing step ( as provided by remote sensing and GIS data) to evaluate the 

status as it changes over time with view to detecting the land consumption rate and also make to predict same and the 

possible changes that may occur in this status so that planners can have a basic tool for planning. 

Urban land is constantly and rapidly changing due to various human development activities and natural 

conditions. Therefore, the management of urban environment involves procedures of monitoring and modelling 

which require reliable information base and robust analytical techniques. Conventional surveying and mapping 

methods cannot deliver the necessary information in a timely and cost effective manner. Remote sensing and GIS 

given their cost effective and technological soundness are increasingly being used to develop useful sources of 

information and to support decision making in connection with a wide array of urban applications [1]. 

Land change dynamics was studied and analyzed across the plains of Metropolitan Ilorin between 1986 

and 2010.  A statistical sampling design, Landsat satellite data and Geographical Information System 

tools were used to efficiently identify patterns of land conversion. Variability of change ranged from 

approximately 2 percent to greater than 50 percent, and progressed at an uneven pace. Indicative of the 

changes is a sequence of agricultural expansion before 1986 followed by widespread conversion to built 

up area by 2000 and beyond.  Pattern and magnitude of conversions influenced by contextual conditions 

of land quality, population increase, plus economic and policy drivers. The sporadic expansion of 

settlements, especially the built up areas in and around the study area, resulted in rapid diminishing and 

conversion  of other land cover types to more built up environment and thus aaccentuating urban 

agglomeration of Ilorin. It is recommended that various Government regulatory authorities embark on 

careful urban planning by strickly allocating land for various designated purposes and ensure continous 

monitoring of physical developments so as to safeguard distortions to the urban environment of Ilorin. 
 
Keywords: Land use, Land cover, Environment, Settlement, Built up areas, Geospatial techniques, 

                 

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Asian Review of Environmental and Earth Sciences, 2014, 1(1): 8-15 

 

 

 

 

9 

 

This study is aimed at producing a layout of land use and land cover of Ilorin at different epochs in order to 

detect the changes that have taken place particularly in the built-up land (settlement) and to predict changes that 

might take place in the same location over a given period using remote sensing techniques.  

 

2. Literature Review 
Land cover refers to the physical materials on the surface of a given parcel of land, while land use refers to the 

human activities that takes place on or make use of land e.g. residential, commercial, industrial etc. Gupta and 

Srivastava [2] described urban landscape as land use that is perceived as a way by which human beings utilize land 

while land cover exists as a natural environmental system. They stated further that change detection in land use and 

land cover can be obtained on a temporal scale such as by considering decades to assess landscape change resulted 

due to anthropogenic activities on the land. These anthropogenic activities on land are the consequence of rapid 

urbanization and industrialization.         

Zubair [3] used remote sensing and GIS technologies to detect the land use and land cover changes in Ilorin, 

Nigeria from 1972 to 2001 by Landsat TM images of 1972, 1986, and 2001. He has used Maximum likelihood 

algorithm of supervised classification method to delineate five land use and land cover classes for the study, namely: 

farmland, wasteland, forest, built-up and water-bodies.   

Nigam [4] applied RS and GIS for land use / land cover mapping and change detection in the rural urban fringe area 

of Enchede City, the Netherlands. He evaluated the effectiveness of High Resolution Satellite data and computer 

aided GIS techniques in assessing the landuse change dynamics within Enschede city, from 1993 to 1998 and thus 

hot links and user interface were developed so that the information can be provided to the user with a well-

documented procedure using Arc view environment.  

However, there are still limitations in this study as delineation of built up boundaries was based on image 

classification alone. Higher accuracy may be achieved using Vegetation Soil Water [VSW] Index or Normalized 

Difference Vegetation Index [NDVI] Shigenobu, et al. [5] applied this approach to delineate new urban areas in 

Bangkok metropolitan region in Thailand. By the late 80s and early 90s most studies have gone beyond just 

monitoring urban growth to examining impacts of these growth on Land use/land cover changes. 

Abubakar, et al. [6] in their study on assessment of environmental degradation using satellite remote sensing 

technologies, examine landuse/landcover changes in Talata Mafara area of Zamfara state, Nigeria. Their results 

showed that changes among six land use / land cover classes between 1986 and 1995, Agricultural land increased 

from 117.00 km
2
 to 158.50 km

2
, while grass, shrub and thicket Land cover decreased from 20.13km

2
 to 12.50 km

2
. 

There was a drastic increase in bare surfaces from 5.38 km
2
 to 27.13 km

2
. Settlement showed a slight decrease from 

1.25 km
2
 to 1.13 km

2
 rather than the expected growth. Uncultivated vegetated wetland also showed a decrease from 

14.63 to 8.25 km
2
 and Water bodies increased from 3.88 km

2
 to 5.00 km

2
. 

Symeonakis, et al. [7] in their study on land use and land cover change and land degradation study in Spain and 

Greece using RS and GIS succeeded in mapping the various types of LULC in Alicante province in South East Spain 

and the Aegeon Island of Lesbos, Greece. They achieved these using the land sat data and the fuzzy classification 

and convolution modules of Erdas Image 8.5 software.  Five (5) fuzzy layers per pixel were used and the resulting 

classified images were assessed using 100 random points and the aerial photographs as ground truth. The 1978 

clssification indicate the catchment area was covered by various types of orchards, with an approximate area of 

12392 ha of the entire catchment. The second LULC type in terms of area covered was matorral 7541 ha, thirdly is 

bare land 7363 ha, fourthly forest, 1039 ha, fifthly urban 889ha and lastly horticultural 879ha. For the year 2000 

matorral had increased to 940 ha, orchard decreased to 895 ha, bare land decreased to 650 ha, horticulture increased 

to 2527 ha, urban increased to 1937 and forest decreased to 817 ha. 

 

2.1. The Study Area 
The study area (Ilorin) is the capital of Kwara State. It is located on latitude 8

0
 31’ N and 4

0
 35’ E with total land 

area of about 100 km
2 
[8]. It is situated on the transitional zone between the Forest and the Savanna region of Nigeria 

and therefore serve as a “melting point” between the Northern and Southern culture”. Ilorin falls into the Southern 

Guinea Savanna Zone. This zone is a transition between the high forest in the Southern part of the country and the 

North with woodland characteristics. 

The geology consists of pre-Cambrian basement complex with an elevation which ranges between 273 meter to 

333 meter in the West and 200 meter to 364 meter in the East. The landscape of the region (Ilorin) is relatively flat 

and this means it is on a plain and is dissected by two rivers; River Asa and River  Oyun which form the core of the 

drainage system, flowing in a North – South direction and thus dividing the plain into two; Western and Eastern parts 

[9]. 

 



Asian Review of Environmental and Earth Sciences, 2014, 1(1): 8-15 

 

 

 

 

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Asian Review of Environmental and Earth Sciences, 2014, 1(1): 8-15 

 

 

 

 

11 

 

 
Oyegun [10] noted that Ilorin is one of the fastest growing urban centers in Nigeria, with the rate of population 

growth and areal extent at a fast pace since 1967, which is much higher than for most cities in Nigeria.  He supported 

his claim, stating that Ilorin the town had an estimated population of 40, 990 in 1952,  208, 546 in 1963, 474, 835 in 

1982 and in 1984, the population was 480, 000. This trend in population growth is rapid and the growth rate between 

1952 and 1963 according to Oyebanji [11] is put at 16 percent which is higher than other cities in the country. The 

population as estimated by the 1991 population census was put at 570,000. 

 

3. Materials and Methods  
The data used for this research include; 

(i) Landsat satellite imageries of Ilorin, Kwara State for 1986, 2000 and 2010 were collected and  utilized for this 

study. The 1986 and 2000 imageries were sourced from Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) and the 2010 imageries 

was sourced from National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Abuja, Nigeria.  

 (ii) ArcGIS 10.1 was used for the display and processing of the data, Ilwis was used for the development of land 

use and land cover classes and for change detection analysis of the study area and Idrisi; for projecting future change. 

(iii) Markov Chain and Cellular Automata Analysis for predicting change was utilised for data analysis. 

Markovian Chain Analysis describe land use change from one period to another and this is used to form the basis for 

projecting future changes. This is achieved by developing a transition probability matrix of land use change from 

time one to time two, which shows the nature of change while still serving as the basis for projecting to a later time 

period . 

(iv)The transition probability may be accurate per category basis. However, it does not provide knowledge of the 

spatial distribution of occurrences within each land use category. Hence, Cellular Automata (CA) was used to add 

spatial character to the model. CA Markov uses the output from the Markov Chain Analysis particularly Transition 

Area file to apply a contiguity filter to “grow out” land use from time two to a later time period. In essence, the CA 

developed a spatially explicit weighting of more heavily areas that proximate to existing land uses. This ensure that 

land use change occurs proximate to existing like land use classes and not wholly random. 

 

 

4. Results and Discussion 
Figures 2, 3 and 4 depicts the pattern of Land use Land cover change in Ilorin for 21 year period (1986 to 2010); 

and the projected change for the year 2020. The figures indicated increase in the percentage of built up areas and 

corresponding decrease in vegetal cover and farmlands 

 
 

 

 

 



Asian Review of Environmental and Earth Sciences, 2014, 1(1): 8-15 

 

 

 

 

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Figure-2.Land use / Land Cover  Ilorin (1986) 

 
Figure-3. Land use/Land cover of  Ilorin (2000) 

 



Asian Review of Environmental and Earth Sciences, 2014, 1(1): 8-15 

 

 

 

 

13 

 

 
Figure-4.Land use / Land Cover of Ilorin (2010) 

 
Figure-5.Land Use Land Cover Projection for Ilorin (2020) 

 

 

 
 



Asian Review of Environmental and Earth Sciences, 2014, 1(1): 8-15 

 

 

 

 

14 

 

Table-1.  Categorised Land use/Land Cover Statistics for Ilorin (1986) 

Categories Area Covered (Hectares) % of the total Land cover 

Bare lands 49409.1 21.6 

Forestland/Vegetation 119588.1 52.2 

Built-up Areas 28980.2 12.6 

Farmlands 30008.0 13.1 

Water Bodies 1064.6 0.5 

 
Table-2.  Categorised Land use/Land Cover Statistics for Ilorin (2000) 

Categories Area Covered (Hectares) % of the total Land cover 

Bare lands 33105.1 14.5 

Forestland/Vegetation 119588.1 52.1 

Built-up Areas 41026.2 17.9 

Farmlands 43266.0 15.0 

Water Bodies 1064.6 0.5 

 
Table-3. Categorised Land use/Land Cover Statistics for Ilorin (2010) 

       Categories Area Covered (Hectares) % of the total Land cover 

Bare lands 33805. 1  14.8 

Forestland/Vegetation 111116.0 48.5 

Built-up Areas 49863.2 21.8 

Farmlands 33205.1 14.5 

Water Bodies 1060.6 0.4 

 
Table-4. Categorised Land use/Land Cover Statistics for Ilorin (2020) 

       Categories Area Covered (Hectares) % of the total Land cover 

Bare lands 35044.6  10.0 

Forestland/Vegetation 104675.9 20.0 

Built-up Areas 58178.7 59.8 

Farmlands 30463.6 10.0 

Water Bodies 687.1 0.2 

 

Tables 1, 2, 3 and 4 shows the classifications of land use and land cover in Ilorin. Five categories were identified; 

namely; bare lands, forested/vegetated lands, built up areas, farmlands and water bodies.  

As at 1986, forest and other vegetal covers account for over 52 percent of total land cover of Ilorin. The built up 

areas and water bodies accounted for 12.5 percent and 0.5 percent respectively (Table 1). However, built up areas 

increased from 12 percent in 1986 to 18 percent in the year 2000. Within the same period, bare land decreased from 

21 percent to 14 percent. No significant change was recorded in other land use patterns (Tables 2, 3 and 4). 

 
Table-5.Comparative Distribution Statistics of Land use Land Cover Pattern forIlorin (1986 - 2020) 

                                                                                    Year 

Categories 1986 2000 2010 2020 

Bare lands 21.6 14.5 14.8 10.0 

Forestland/Vegetation 52.2 52.1 48.5 20.0 

Built-up Areas 12.6 19.3 21.8 59.8 

Farmlands 13.1 13.6 14.5 10.0 

 Water Bodies 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.2 

Total 100 100 100 100 

 

It became evident that enormous changes in land use occurred as a result of sporadic urban growth that Ilorin 

witnessed in recent times. The territorial extent of farmlands, vegetation and water bodies have been greatly 

tampered with, as a result of human activities through exploitation and development of built up areas. The 

continuous increase in built up areas is due to increase in the inflow of population that places heavy demand on the 

environment and thus leading to great increase in the size of the settlement in both the city center and the surburbs 

(Table 5). 

The land use land cover change projection to the year 2020 shows that there is going to be further population 

increase in Ilorin. This will be necessited by net gain due to immigration and uncontrolled birth rate.  

 

5. Conclusion and Recommendations 
The sporadic expansion of settlements, especially the built up areas in and around the study area, resulted in 

rapid diminishing and conversion  of other land cover types to more built up environment and thus aaccentuating 

urban agglomeration of Ilorin. It is recommended that various Government regulatory authorities embark on careful 

urban planning by strickly allocating land for various designated purposes and ensure continous monitoring of 

physical developments sos as to safeguard distortions to the urban environment of Ilorin. 

 

References   
[1] X. Yang and C. P. Lo, "Using a time series of normalized satellite imagery to detect land use/cover change in the Atlanta, Georgia 

metropolitan area," International Journal of Remote Sensing, vol. 23, pp. 1775–1798, 2002. 



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15 

 

[2] R. D. B. Gupta and S. K. Srivastava, Monitoring of change in landuse/landcover using multi sensor satellite data. India: National 

Institute of Technology Allahabad, 2004. 

[3] A. Zubair, "Monitoring the growth of settlement in Ilorin, Nigeria (A GIS and Remote Sensing Approach)," The International 

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[5] T. Shigenobu, O. Tran Shiro, and Y. Yushifumi, "Monitoring of long-term urban expansion by the use of remote seneing images for 

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[7] E. Symeonakis, A. Calvo, and E. Arnau, "A study of the relationship between landuse changes and land degradation in Spain and 

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[8] Kwara State of Nigeria, Kwara state diary. Ilorin: Government Press, 1997. 

[9] J. O. Oyebanji, "Indicators of level of living in Nigeria," Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of Nigerian Geographical 

Association, 1986. 

[10] R. O. Oyegun, Water resources in Kwara State. Ilorin: Matanmi and Sons Printing and Publishing Co. Ltd, 1983. 

[11] J. O. Oyebanji, Social indicators and quality of life in Nigeria; the state of the art. In: Rural Nigeria: Development and quality of 

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