[01] Kolade Victor Otokiti, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria. [02] Olufemi Samson Adesina, Department of Food Security, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom. [03] Ibrahim Mohammed, Department of Environmental Bioscience in a Changing Climate, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.

Forest resources are vulnerable to the effect of climate change extremes and human activities. However, the environmental protection potentials and ecological value associated with forest resources in response to climate change and environmental degradation are enormous. Sustainable management and monitoring of forest resources can, therefore, contribute to the resilience of cities to lessen the severity of climate change manifestation. This study quantifies the magnitude of depleted forest land-cover in Akinyele and Egbeda local government areas in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, using Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) tools. Landsat Imageries for the years 1986 and 2019 were subjected to a supervised classification on ArcMap 10.3. Besides, a structured questionnaire was used to collect information on the socio-economic characteristics of respondents, knowledge of respondents about environmental benefits associated with forest resources in response to climate change, as well as the causes of forest depletion. The GIS results revealed an overall decline in the forest area. Also, the majority of the respondents were farmers (34%) with little or no knowledge of the benefits of forest conservation in tackling the challenges posed by climate change. Moreover, agriculture (35%), logging (30%) and urbanization (28%) accounted for the leading causes of forest depletion in the study areas. The study, however, recommends policies to be adopted in response to forest resource depletion and climate change manifestations.

Climate Change, Environmental Degradation, Forest, Ibadan, GIS

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