Figure 1. The Study Area ource: Oyo State Ministry of Land: The study was conducted in the Northeast suburban areas of Ibadan, Nigeria. Ibadan, the capital city of Oyo State, consists of eleven LGAs; while five constitute the municipal, the remaining six LGAs form the suburb. The area selected for the study consists of three LGAs, these are: Akinyele, Lagelu and Egbeda LGAs. The study area is located between Latitudes 7° 21'N and 7° 41'N; and Longitudes 3° 47'E and 4° 09'E (Figure 1). The National Population Commission (NPC 2006) revealed that the study area contained 643,587 people spread over a total land area of about 969.08km? (Table 1). The major and aboriginal indigenes of study area are the Yorubas, though there are other tribes from different parts of the country (Fabiyi 2006). there are other tribes from different parts of the country (Fabiyi 2006). Table 2. Satellite Imageries Data for this study were obtained from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data were sourced through fieldwork using Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver to obtain the geographic -oordinates of relevant features for ground validations. Secondary data used for this study include idministrative maps of the study area obtained from the Town Planning Departments of the ‘espective Local Government Secretariats; population data obtained from the records of the National Population Commission, Ibadan; and satellite imageries (Table 2). In view of the available Jata, the period of change analysis was divided into two epochs; while the first epoch covered a oeriod of sixteen years (1986-2002), the second epoch spanned over fifteen years (2002-2017). Table 3. Classification of Landuse/cover in the suburban Area In the attempt to quantify the spatio-temporal extent and rate of growth in the study area, result landuse/cover classification were combined with class area spatial metrics (Cushman et al. 2008 phan et al. 2009; Deng et al. 2009; Yeh and Huang 2009; Buyantuyev ef al. 2010; Kumar ef ai 18). In this study, ten spatial metrics were selected for analysis based on the potential of each t st describe the landscape pattern in the study area (Table 4). All the metrics were calculated usin; agstats program (McGarigal et al. 2002). Table 5. Imagery Classification and Accuracy Assessment Table 4. Characteristics of landscape metrics used in Fragstats Physical Changes in the Suburban Areas of Ibadan Table 6 shows that vegetation covered the greatest proportion of the land at 78.89%, 74.84% and 49.63% in 1986, 2002 and 2017, respectively. Exposed surfaces occupied 12.16% in 1986, 12.28% in 2002 and 24.87% in 2017. The built-up area occupied 8.82% in 1986, 12.71% in 2002 and 25.30% in 2017. Water body occupied the least part of the landcover at 0.13% in 1986, 0.17 in 2002 and 0.20% in 2017. Increase in the proportion of exposed surfaces is an indication of intense human activities that might have encouraged opening up of the land thereby resulting in significant Sonversion of vegetated areas. However, a visit to the study area during the field survey revealed that most of the cleared portions (exposed surfaces) towards the eastern part of the area in 2002 have been covered by cultivated crops in 2017. Also, there was an increase in the area occupied by water body between 2002 and 2017 which might be as a result of the dredging and expansion of water channels embarked upon by the Oyo State Government of Nigeria in 2016 (Oyo State Government 2016). Sources: Landsat TM 1986; ETM+ 2002; OLI 2017 Table 6. Summary of Landuse/Landcover Statistics Sources: Landsat TM, 1986; ETM+, 2002; OLI, 2017 Table 7. Spatial Metrics of Built-up Class at the Entire Landscape Level
