Spatio-Temporal Classification of Land Use and Land Cover Changes between 1995 and 2025 of Idanre Forest Reserve, South-Western Nigeria

Abstract

This study assessed the spatio-temporal dynamics of land use and land cover (LULC) changes in Idanre Forest Reserve, Ondo State, Nigeria, between 1995 and 2025 using Landsat imagery, Geographic Information System (GIS), and supervised Maximum Likelihood Classification to map six LULC classes which are undisturbed forest, disturbed forest, built-up land, bare land, bare rock and water bodies. The overall classification accuracies ranging from 87.7% to 91.2% and Kappa coefficients of 0.83–0.90. The results revealed a decline in undisturbed forest cover from 34,805 ha to 23,905 ha, representing a loss of 10,890 ha (273 ha yr⁻¹), accompanied by substantial increases in disturbed forest and bare land due to agricultural encroachment, illegal logging, and other anthropogenic activities, highlighting the need for strengthened forest protection, ecological restoration, and continuous geospatial monitoring to ensure the sustainable management of the reserve.