Assessment of Oil Spillage Impact on Vegetation in South-Western Niger Delta, Nigeria

The present study assesses the impact of oil spillage in the Southwestern Niger Delta of Nigeria over the past fifty (50) years. It further sought to find out the driving forces and implications of oil spillage on vegetation, livelihoods and other key parameters. The study employed geospatial techniques and a secondary source of data to achieve the objectives set out in this study. The Global Moran I statistical tool was used to determine the spatial autocorrelation based on feature locations and attribute values. We observed built-up areas, bare land, and less dense vegetation had an overall increment of 1975.98 km2, 1370 km2 and 23805 km2, respectively. Dense vegetation had declension of 22058.33 km2 over the past five decades. Findings depict a declining trend in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, attributed to oil spillage as the key contributory factor. Occasioned by anthropogenic activities, the driving forces were traced to attacks on oil pipelines during conflicts and illegal means of creating leakages to siphon crude oil for sale. To achieve sustainability in oil spill management in the Delta, the study recommends further research to ascertain the cost of losses incurred apply geospatial techniques to monitor and predict environmental changes that inform decisions of key actors.