LAND USE AND LAND COVER MAPPING IN ILORIN AND ITS ENVIRONS, KWARA STATE, NIGERIA.

Jibril, M .S

Land use and land cover mapping of the outskirt of Ilorin has been neglected over the years. Thus, spatial accurate and qualitative information on the categories of features of the outskirt of the city are not available. This study therefore, maps the land use/cover of the city and its environs using satellite imageries. The methods of analysis that were adopted include visual interpretation of the spot XS of 1994 and the soft copy image of Nigeria sat-1 of 2004 was interpreted using the onscreen digitization function of the ERDAS Imagine version 8.31. The results show that out of the total areal coverage of 761.183km², cultivated land has the highest percentages of the land use pattern, 663.081km² (87.1%) in 1994 and 593.489 km² (77.9%) in 2004. On the other hand, vegetal cover, which is an important resource and helps in maintaining ecosystems, had only 12.469km² (1.7%) areal coverage in 1994 and 31.42212km² in 2004. It is therefore, the submission of this paper that there should be need to develop rural resources management policies to protect natural resources such as vegetation cover, soil, water resources, edible plants and wild animals from extinction.

Key words: Land use, land cover, Ilorin, Vegetal cover, area photograph Geographic Information system.