Abstract

This study employed geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing techniques to analyze land use and land cover (LULC) changes in Lagos State from 2002 to 2022 and to project LULC changes for the year 2050. ENVI 5.3 was utilized for supervised classification via the maximum likelihood technique, categorizing Lagos State into six distinct classes: built-up areas, bare land, wetlands, forest, grassland, and water bodies. Subsequently, the IDRISI-TerrSet software CA-Markov model was employed to predict land use patterns for the year 2050. The classification accuracies for 2002 and 2022 were 89.87% and 87.50%, respectively, with kappa coefficients of 0.86 and 0.83, which are considered acceptable. From 2002 to 2022, the built-up area increased by 26.6 km², bare land decreased by 110 km², wetland area decreased by 96 km², forest area decreased by 449 km², grassland area increased by 11 km², and water bodies decreased by 133 km². The projections for year 2050 indicate that from 2022 to 2050, built-up land will increase by 664 km², bare land will increase by 0.7 km², wetlands will decrease by 1.5 km², forests will decrease by 7.6 km², grasslands will increase by 7 km², and water bodies will decrease by 3 km². The findings of this study will assist environmental managers in making well-informed decisions to promote resilient urban growth and sustainable development in Lagos State.

Key Words: Land Use/Land Cover, Projection, CA-Markov, Sustainable development