TITLE:
Analysis of Vegetation Index of Protected Forests in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria between 2000 and 2021
AUTHORS:
David Udoma-Michaels, Olalekan Akinola
KEYWORDS:
NDVI, Protected Forest Areas, Vegetation Health, Akwa Ibom, MODIS
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.9 No.6,
June
13,
2022
ABSTRACT: The study assessed the Vegetation Index of Protected forest areas in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria between 2000 and 2021. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard Terra and Aqua satellite of 16 Day temporal and 250 m spatial resolutions respectively of 2000, 2017 and 2021 were used to carry out the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) mapping for the study. The individual sizes of each protected forest were overlaid to the shapefile of each LGA size to determine the vegetation health of the forest in each LGA. The zonal statistical function of the ArcGIS 10.5 was used to derive the level of vegetation health of the forests between 2000 and 2021. Descriptive statistics using minimum, maximum and mean were employed for data presentation while inferential statistics in form of ANOVA analysis were employed to explain the variation in vegetation health of protected forests between 2000 and 2021. Findings revealed that the vegetation index of protected forest areas reduced from 0.616 ± 0.14 in 2000 and 0.464 ± 0.02 in 2017 to 0.348 ± 0.16 in 2021. The findings of the study showed variation in vegetation index (health) of identified protected forest areas between 2000 and 2021 (F = 246.064; p ≤ 0.05). The study amongst others recommends that the reduction in Vegetation Health of protected forests requires banning expansive hunting and gathering encroachments; it also requires imposing stricter measures in the management of the activities of oil and gas industries and controlling urbanization for effective land use planning.