Temporal Non-Stationarity of Forest Loss and Land Reallocation Pathways in the Southern Senatorial District of Taraba State, Nigeria, 1990–2020
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.68050/JAMS.2026.615Keywords:
land change intensity, forest loss rate, land reallocation, non-stationarity, Taraba StateAbstract
Forest cover has declined sharply in the Southern Senatorial District of Taraba State, Nigeria, between 1990 and 2020. However, whether this decline occurred at a constant rate or varied across decades, and which land-use categories absorbed the lost forest area, remains insufficiently examined. This study therefore assessed the temporal pattern of forest-cover loss and identified the dominant land-use transitions associated with the decline. Specifically, the study tested whether inter-decadal forest loss was statistically stationary and quantified the proportions of lost forest and water-body areas absorbed by built-up and cultivated/bare land across three decades. The study re-analysed a land use/land cover (LULC) time series for 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, originally derived by the author for an unpublished MSc thesis (Gbana, 2023) using supervised Maximum Likelihood Classification of Landsat imagery into five land-cover classes. Three analytical techniques not previously applied to this dataset were employed: the standardised compound annual rate of change formula of Puyravaud (2003), a Pearson chi-square goodness-of-fit test of the null hypothesis that forest loss was evenly distributed across the three inter-decadal intervals, and reallocation-share accounting to determine the proportion of lost forest and water-body areas absorbed by built-up versus cultivated/bare land. The compound annual rate of forest-cover loss was −0.64%/year in 1990–2000, accelerating more than sixfold to −4.22%/year in 2000–2010 before moderating to −3.36%/year in 2010–2020. The chi-square test rejected the hypothesis of stationary decadal loss (χ² = 1632.65, df = 2, p < .001). Reallocation patterns also shifted substantially: built-up area absorbed 83.6% and 66.4% of lost forest and water-body areas in 1990–2000 and 2000–2010, respectively, whereas cultivated/bare land became dominant in 2010–2020, absorbing 57.9%. The findings demonstrate that forest loss was both temporally non-stationary and variable in destination, shifting from settlement-driven to agriculture-driven encroachment. Conservation and land-use policies should therefore adopt decade-specific interventions, combining urban containment with measures that promote sustainable agricultural intensification.
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