ANALYSIS OF LAND USE CHANGE IN IKEJA, LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA (2005-2015)

Against the background of seemingly uncontrollable land use and land cover change, and its resultant implications on environmental quality in most urban centres of the developing countries, this paper analyzes the nature, spatial and temporal dimensions of land use/land cover change and its effect in Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria. The study made use of primary data obtained from Google Earth Pro satellite imagery and questionnaire to collect data pertaining to land use and related issues. Firstly, images obtained in the Envi 5.0 were classified into three categories: developed, vegetation and open space/undeveloped. Frequency count and percentages were used to summarize the data generally, and to illustrate the nature and magnitude of change from one use to another over a period of ten years (2005-2015). The study revealed that developed area increased between 2005 and 2015 by 10.66% and open space/undeveloped land (including cleared area for anticipated physical development) by 193.06%, with a resultant decrease in vegetation land cover by 50.28 % within the period. The study also showed that there was a less controlled urbanization and unguided land use change in Ikeja local government area of Lagos state, which tends to have a negative implication for sustainable development of the area. It, therefore, recommended that the efforts of planning authority and other development control agencies should be intensified to forestall further encroachment of farmland/green space which might have been zoned for non-physical development use, and to ensure effective control of land use and physical development generally.