ABSTRACT

Climate change is one of the most important factors affecting the formation of soil with important implications for their development. The aim of this project work, effect and modelling of land use and climate change on kwa ibom river using SWAT is to show the impacts of land use and climate change in Abia state and or other relevant environmental changes on soils and soil functions, to generate mathematical model to simulate the projected parameters affecting land use and climate change on the growth of pepper in Abia state using SWAT. The study was carried out at the field research (Figure 1) of the Humid Forest Research Station (FRIN), Umuahia. The Humid Forest Research Station (FRIN), Umuahia occupies a 33 hectares piece of land in Umuahia North Local Government Area of Abia State. About 4 km to the capital City Centre. The SWAT model was the ideal choice for use in this study because of various reasons; it is a physically based model that requires specific information about weather, soil properties, topography, vegetation and land management practices which it uses as inputs to simulate the physical processes associated with water movement, nutrient transport, crop growth and sediment movement. The results presented are those ofthe watershed in the study area. The results were divided into two categories, which were: land cover classification and hydrological modeling. The land cover mapping provides data on the type of land use/land cover types present within the study area. The hydrological modeling section provides data on the discharge amounts and water balance components of Kwa Ibom watershed and the influence of land use and climate change on it. Based on the results obtained, we recommend that the advantage of scenario in SWAT model analysis should be taken to make predictions offuture occurrences in land use/land cover and climate change ofthe environment.