Assessment of spatiotemporal land cover change in Calabar Municipality Eteng E.O., Offiong R.A., Ekpe I.A. Dept. of Geography & Environmental Science, University of Calabar, Nigeria Online published on 11 December, 2013. Abstract The study examined the spatiotemporal land cover changes that are currently taking place in Calabar Municipality. Spatiotemporal features like urban green areas, wetlands, riparian forest and other forest and grassland ecosystems are currently giving way for new roads construction, residential and industrial layouts, recreation and amusement parks etc. This is attributed to the current trend of rapid economic, social, cultural and political development that is taking place in Calabar. Data for the study was obtained from aerial photographs and was considered from 2004 – 2012. An irregular interval between 2005 to 2009 and 2010 – 2012, was adopted in determining the changes that have occurred alongside effects on the spatiotemporal features. Remote sensing and geographic information systems (Arc view GIS 9.3 software) technology was used in change detection analysis. From the study, it was revealed that the population of Calabar Municipality has witnessed asteady upward trend from 143,089 to 179,392 within the periods of 1991 and 2006, and the amount of built up area has increased from 91.55 square kilometers within 2005 – 2009 to 98.712 square kilometers between 2010 and 2012. Hence, about 33.68 square kilometers of spatiotemporal Land cover change have taken place. However,land cover changeswere more accelerated between the periods of 2005 – 2009 with an average of 5.304 square kilometers per annum as compared to 2010 – 2012 which had an average of 2.39 square kilometers per annum. This continuous removal of natural vegetationwould pose several environmental consequences. Therefore, caution should be applied in this phase of urban rapid growth and development. Top Keywords Calabar Municipality, Land coverchange, Urbanization, Spatiotemporal features. Top |