ANALYSIS OF URBAN SPRAWL AND ITS EFFECT IN MARARABA, KARU LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF NASARAWA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Cities and towns in developing countries all over the world are experiencing an unplanned and uncontrolled development known as Urban sprawl. Sprawl is often uncoordinated and extends along the fringes of metropolitan areas with incredible speed. This research is aimed at examining urban sprawl in Mararaba between 1998 and 2018.The data used for the study were Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) of 1998, Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) data of 2008 and operational land imager of 2018.The extent of urban land use was determined by using the attribute and statistics data generated from the classification result and used for post-classification comparison among the years. Result showed that Mararaba witnessed a remarkable growth between 1998 and 2018 from mere 1.1178 Km2 in 1998 to about 5.8716 Km2 in 2018. This growth contributed to the sharp decline in farmland from 4.0545 km2 (48.27%) in 1998 to decline to 1.0512 km2 (12.51%) in 2018. Bare surfaces witnessed an increase over the years of this study. This increase is as a result of clearing of natural vegetation for urban development, thereby exposing the land to direct contact with rainfall, leading to gully erosion in the area. Light vegetation also witnessed a sharp decreased from (6.23%) in 1998 to (13.99%) in 2018. Therefore, increase in population led to the increase in urban sprawl in the study area. The study recommends that there is a need for a regular monitoring of urban sprawl and development in the study area by the state government especially with the aid of geospatial techniques for better decision making