| Abstrakt: |
Landsat-7 images (ETM+) of 2001 and 2006 and Nigeriasat-1 images of 2012 were used for recognition of vegetation reflectance, layer stacking of band 4, 3 and 2 (false color composite) for ETM+ and 3, 2, l(false color composite) for Nigeriasat-1 was performed. GCP were taken with a GPS device in strategic locations of the study area; this was to establish ground information on vegetation cover. The images were classified into dense vegetation, savanna orchard bush, and grassland/cropland, exposed land, built up area and water body. The GCP were plotted on ETM+ which was used to evaluate the vegetation change in Nigeriasat-1 images. Supervised classification was done and maximum likelihood operation was performed to generate vegetation cover maps. Afterwards, vegetation cover map of 2001 and 2012, were crossed to generate the map of change of vegetation cover for the respective dates and to find out the changing pattern of vegetation cover. The accuracy of the classification was done to assess a confusion matrix. Additionally, the use of spectral vegetation index, namely the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was applied to detect areas of vegetation cover decrease. The study then reveals that vegetation cover of the area has changed significantly during 2001 to 2012; it is therefore recommended that the decline in the vegetation call for coercive environmental protection policies to relieve human pressure on vegetation and for this reason the policy should be enforced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
