ISSN 2348-1218 (print) International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research and Innovations ISSN 2348-1226 (online) Vol. 8, Issue 2, pp: (50-58), Month: April - June 2020, Available at: www.researchpublish.com
Monitoring and Assessment of Desertification for Sustainable Development in Yunusari Ayuba Abubakar Fusami1, Abubakar Abdulgaffar A.2, Hassan Hashimu Abdu3, Abubakar Muhammad Yarima4 Department of Surveying and Geoinformatics, ATBU Bauchi Corresponding Author Email fusamiabubakar@yahoo.com abdul.3plea@gmail.com surveyorhassan@gmail.com maybfika@gmail.com
Abstract: Effect of desertification in Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the challenges affecting the region and has produced a lot of damages to its socio-economic activities. It can be seen in crop failures, livestock mortality and drought leading low economic output. The research attempts to evaluate the level of desertification in Yunusari Local Government Area. Satellites imageries with temporal and synoptic view were used in the assessment of desertification using supervised classification by maximum likelihood technique. Imageries from 1988 to 2018 at interval of ten years (10) were used. Early warning to the appropriate beneficiaries will strengthen capacity and increasing resiliency in disaster risk reduction and mitigation process. The findings in this research identified decrease healthy vegetation, increase arid land and increase dunes area coverage. This indicates desertification in the study area has increased, 41.215km2 of land areas covered by healthy was lost between 1988 and 2018, while arid land areas and dune fields increased from 398.113km2 in 1988 to 439.328km2 in 2018. Keywords: Desertification, monitoring and mitigation.
I. INTRODUCTION Agricultural activities, fuel wood collection, settlements and over grazing are element of desertification where by lands use was changed to suite human need but it imparts negatively on the soil fertility, vegetation cover and forest land. Rapp A. (2019), viewed desertification problem and its processes to confusing and not been clearly defined. To Panel et al. 2019, desert can be seen as a mixture of particulate matter emitted from the surface of arid and semi-arid regions. Desertification can be seen as the changes from productive to unproductive land as a result of man-induced activities (Sen Li et al. 2019). Ismat M., (2004) concluded that desertification in tropical Africa was due to man's activity and not as a result of the Sahara spreading or climatic causes. In an International Conference on Desertification held by United Nations in Nairobi, Kenya (August and September of 1977) with representatives from at least 100 nations, projected that from 1969 to 1973, drought in African Sahel savannah has affected six countries to the southern border, it led to the deaths of thousands people and the disruption of millions of livestock. The growth domestic product of the areas was affected too. At the global level, it is estimated that the annual income of areas immediately affected by desertification has decreased by 42 billion American dollars (Musa et al. 2010). Morgan et al. (2016) carried a research on how desertification affects ecosystems where experimental plots were established and divided among controls of experimental manipulations. Their result shows the response to populations and communities to long‐term changes in climate and habitat with challenging effect to ecosystems. Desert encroachment being an environmental problem that affects northern Nigeria, heading towards the southern part may lead to a lot of socio-economic problem. Even though desertification is an age-old phenomenon, it affects countries
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