Abstract
A few earlier workers have studied the menace of gully erosion in Auchi area in southwestern Nigeria, but with little success in deciphering and quantifying the causes as well as characterizing the dynamics of the expanding gullies. This study has, for the first time, successfully assessed the various possible factors that control the initiation and growth of the massive, presently active gullies found in Auchi, using novel spatial analysis of high resolution satellite images acquired in 2005, 2009 and 2013 over the study area, as well as Landsat ETM+ image over the study area. Among all the assessed factors—land use, vegetation, topography, geology and precipitation, results indicate that geology and precipitation are the strongest controls on gully erosion in the area. Analyses of the lithology and structural geology of the area (from both regional and local perspectives) also presented significant understanding of the geological dependence of gully localization and orientation. Changes in the geometries of gully systems and changes in gully floor were quantified from gully features, resulting in insights into the process of evolution and growth of the gully systems. Results indicated that the oldest gully in Auchi area was initiated (or at least, began headcut retreat) in the rainy season of 1997, while another major gully in the area was initiated in the rainy season of 2003. The assessment also suggests that another significant retreat in the gully systems might have occurred in 2015 or 2016, followed by another one in 2019 or 2020, as indicated by the observed cycle of maximum annual precipitation in the study area.
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The author is grateful to colleagues whose comments added quality to the paper. Folarin Kolawole (University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA) is acknowledged for carrying out data analysis. All data sources are acknowledged.
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Anifowose, A.Y.B. (2019). Remote Sensing Analysis of the Evolution and Retreat Dynamics of the Auchi Gully, Southwestern Nigeria. In: Wade, S. (eds) Earth Observations and Geospatial Science in Service of Sustainable Development Goals. Southern Space Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16016-6_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16016-6_13
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