GIS-Based Evaluation of the Spatio-Temporal Impacts of Rainfall and Temperature Variability on Vegetation Cover in Bauchi State, Nigeria

Abstract

Vegetation cover is an important natural resource for sustainable development, these resources have been affected by both environmental and human factors. The present study evaluates the impacts of temperature and rainfall variability on vegetation cover in Bauchi State, Nigeria. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), mean monthly temperature, total monthly rainfall for 2001, 2011 and 2021 were used and analysed in ArcMap 10.8 environment in this study. The results indicated a consistent relationship between temperature and rainfall with vegetation cover whereby an increase in 1 unit of temperature may lead to the in-vegetation density by about 0.05 unit of vegetation throughout the study period. The result also revealed that a rise of rainfall by 1 unit may consequently resulted to an increase in the density of vegetation by 0.0002, 0.001 and 0.0003 in 2001, 2011 and 2021 respectively. Result further indicated the residual with a negative Moran’s I index throughout the study period this therefore showed a random pattern. It was also revealed from the findings that during 2001, Bauchi State observed more vegetation cover in many areas due to climatic factors than what will be recorded in future. This is more specifically in Ningi, Toro, Ganjuwa and Dass Local Government Areas (LGAs). This clearly indicated that temperature and rainfall variability are important factors that determine the nature of vegetation cover in the area. Hence, due to the importance of vegetation cover in the provision of food, shelter, wildlife habitat, and provision of fuel.  This study recommended the integration of geospatial technologies (especially GIS) to assess the contribution of climatic factors to vegetation distribution.