Paper Title
Assessment Of Land Use /Land Cover Changes In The Savannah Sugar Project Area, Adamawa State, Nigeria

Abstract
The aim of this study is to assess the spatial and temporal patterns of land use / land cover changes induced by the Savannah sugar project over the last forty years. The spatial scope of this study is the territory surrounding Kiri dam and the sugar estate, which is about 10km radius situated between latitude 9030’ and 100 0’ N and longitude 11045’ and 120 05’ E. The data used consist of Lands at satellite images from Thematic Mapper (TM) of 1986 and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) of 2010, acquired from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) archives and topographic maps of 1969 from the Nigerian Survey Department. The temporal scales used were 1969, 1986 and 2010 for the imageries. From-to change matrix was used for land cover change analysis. The results showed that cropland has highest increase gained from vegetation, bare surface, built up, marshes, and water in that order. This is followed by bare surface which gained from vegetation, cropland, water, built-up and marshy land. The largest decrease was vegetation which gave out to cropland, bare surface, marshes, built up, and water. Generally, land cover changes are tending towards more bare soils and marshes as indices of environmental degradation primarily because of increased human activities, particularly agriculture, animal grazing, and the increased construction of paved roads and settlements. Sustainable tree planting by all the stake holders is recommended to reduce land degradation in the area. Keywords - Land use / land cover, Environmental Change, Temporal Pattern, Built Up, Crop Land, Vegetation, Water Bodies.