A remote-sensing based assessment of seasonal variation in vegetation quality and productivity in Nimbia forest

Abstract

Agriculture plays a vital role in the growth and sustainability of developing countries, such as those in subsaharan Africa. Therefore, there is need to monitor and assess the changes taking place on vegetation quality and productivity. Conventional ground survey method has proved to be highly tedious, laborious and grossly limited especially when large and densely forested regions are concerned. This paper presents a remote sensing based approach as a real time technology to determine the effect and extent of water loss caused by seasons on vegetation quality in Nimbia forest, Kaduna State. ENVI 4.7, ArcGIS 10.0 and Global Mapper Software were used and a discrepancy of about 45% in quality of vegetation has been observed between seasons in the region under study.