Urban Land Use Change Detection and Its Drivers in Enugu Metropolis: A 20-Year Analysis

Systematic empirical analysis of urban land use change over time provides essential evidence for understanding urbanization processes and designing effective planning interventions. This study detects and analyses land use change in Enugu Metropolis over a 20-year period from 2004 to 2024, identifying the key drivers and planning implications of observed transitions. Multi-temporal Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery was processed using supervised classification in ArcGIS Pro to produce land use maps for four time points. Change detection analysis quantified transitions between residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, vegetation, and water body categories. Logistic regression modelling was used to identify statistically significant predictors of residential expansion, including road proximity, slope, elevation, distance to employment centers, and planning designation. Population and economic growth data from NPC and CBN sources were incorporated as macro-level drivers. Findings are expected to document rapid expansion of low-density residential development at the expense of agricultural and vegetated land, particularly along the Enugu-Onitsha and Enugu-Port Harcourt road corridors, with minimal consolidation of the existing built area. The study examines whether land use changes observed are consistent with or in contravention of the Enugu Metropolitan Master Plan. Recommendations address updating of the Enugu Metropolitan Master Plan to reflect changed spatial realities, introduction of agricultural land protection zones, road corridor development guidance, and a continuous GIS-based land use monitoring system for planning authority use. Keywords: Land use change, Change detection, Enugu, Urbanization, Remote sensing.