Abstract

This paper is aimed at examining the relevance and impact of Jabi Lake in urban development and sustainable environmental change management. It uses a 2km radius buffer of remotely sensed satellite data from Landsat to examine the landuse/land cover dynamics within Jabi Lake and its environs in FCT-Abuja, Nigeria. Using maximum likelihood algorithm in ERDAS Imagine software, the supervised classification result shows that the lake water body decreased from 4.1 % in 1987 to 3.1% in 2006 and later increased to 4.0% in 2014. Built up experienced the highest landuse/land cover change from 3.17% in 1987 to 33.4% in 2006 and 37.5% in 2014. Light and dense vegetation reduced the most, while bare surface also showed an increase due to rapid urban development around the lake in the last 27 years. The focused group discussion (FGD) reveals that the conversion of previous agricultural land use and unplanned land uses to residential land use was due to high demand for residential housing around the lake. The perceived ambience scenery and accessible good road network were ranked as the first and second major positive centripetal forces of attraction to building near the lake while expensive land purchase and high rent were ranked first and second as the most negative centrifugal impacts of the lake on the environment. In conclusion, there is the need to monitor the progression of urban development so as to safeguard the lake for aquatic agriculture and it’s immediate environment from further deterioration.

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