Nature-Based Tourism Sustainability and Climatic Change Implication in Ikogosi Warm Spring Environs, Southwestern Nigeria

The Geographical Position of Ikogosi Warm Spring Centre

Ikogosi Ekiti is in Ekiti State, South Western, and Nigeria (as shown in Figure 1). It lies between Latitude 7o34ꞌ N and 7o 35ꞌ N, Longitude 4o 58ꞌ E and 4o 59ꞌ E and the elevation of Ikogosi ranges from 457.0 - 487.5m above sea level [5].

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It is located in the tropical rainforest and is characterized by a nearly uniform temperature throughout the year with an annual mean temperature ranging between 21°C and 28°C with high humidity [10, 11]. By lithology, Ikogosi Ekiti is located within the Ipole-Iloro and Efon Alaaye schist belt [10]. It is underlain by metamorphic rocks of the basement complex, which outcrops over many parts. Basement complex rocks found here is schist, associated with quartzite ridges [12]. The undulating topography of the entire tourist centre and the symmetry of the surrounding hills add more to the aesthetic beauty of this centre. There is a pass that cuts across the Tourist centre to the equally popular Erinta Water Falls at Ipole Iloro, a few kilometres to the Warm Spring at Ikogosi. The Warm and Cold Springs is situated in a valley surrounded by hills which attract visitors to the tourist center for leisure, vacation, conference and educational research. The natural vegetation of the area is characterized by emergent forest with canopy layers and vines around the undulating terrain of the rocky region in Ikogosi. Also, Ikogosi Ekiti is a rural center with linear settlement, homogeneity in nature and total population of 3,594 (National Population Commission, 2006) [13]. Local populace engaged in primary occupation like farming, fishing, crafting, among others. Numerous tourists visit the place to enjoy the luxurious warm and cold swimming pool provided for recreational needs. Ikogosi is also the home of the 5-star chalets rooms and Gossy Water Bottling Industry, a subsidiary of United Africa Company, Nigeria. This has transformed Ikogosi to a renowned world class tourist centre with average visitor annually reported to be over a million. This great geometric increment in the number of tourists’ visit to the Ikogosi Community has necessitated the need to assess the vegetation composition, aesthetic terrain and forest luxuriant as received by tourists during their visit to the study area.

Data Sources

Multi-dated satellite imageries of Ikogosi were acquired from Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) on Earth Science Data Interface (http://glcf.umaiacs.umd.edu). The 30 meter Landsat images of Thematic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic (ETM+) and Operational Land Imager (OLI) of 1991, 2002 and 2015 (both path / row 190 / 055); covering the study area was acquired. The images were geometrically corrected to Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate system. Also, the ground-truth information required for the classification and accuracy assessment of the Landsat images was collected through a field survey which was carried out between December, 2015 and March, 2015 using Global Positioning System (GPS). In addition, Secondary data were employed to meet the objectives of this study. Station observations of rainfall and temperature from 1975 to 2014 were obtained from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State. The climatic data were then processed to obtain monthly, annual and decadal means over the study area. Noticeable changes in the trends and characteristics of the local climate were also estimated and presented.

Satellite Imagery Analysis

The satellite images were digitally processed using ArcGIS 10.3 software and exported to Idrisi Selva 17.0 for supervised classification using Maximum Livelihood. At first, images were geo-rectified to Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate system WGS-84 before resampling and enhancement. Training sites corresponding to each classification item (land use class) were chosen; Five land cover and land-use types were defined for supervised classification: built-up area, rock outcrop, dense vegetation, light vegetation and water body; this was done to identify the existing land-use features in the study area. Furthermore, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) analysis was carried out on Landsat data to provide continuous estimation to the amount of greenness of the vegetation cover for the study area. NVDI analysis was performed by difference of sum for the reflectance values of NIR (Landsat band 4 and red 3) for TM 1991 and ETM+ 2002; and (Landsat band 5 and red 4) for OLI 2015. In addition, species diversity were analysed using Shannon’s Diversity Index (SHIDI) and Simpson’s Diversity Index (SIDI). The study made a projection based on the existing classified imageries changes in Ikogosi landscape composition and configuration among the classified imageries (Figure 2).

However, magnitude of the vegetation greenness was represented in percentage and this was categorized into four types: Highly Degraded (>60%), Degraded (40-60%), Moderately Degraded (20-40%) and Not Degraded (<20%).

$$\frac{NDVI - NDVI_{\min}}{NDVI_{\max} - NDVI_{\min}}^2$$

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Climatic Data Analysis

distribution reached its peak in year 2010 (27.046oC). The results of the climatic parameters revealed some upward and download fluctuation across the period of years considered; notwithstanding, analysis of rainfall and temperature data established that climatic phenomena have been highly varied and this has impacted the vegetation condition and luxuriant in the study area. This made, European Environment Agency (2012) [14] to perceive that observed changes in climatic characteristics have implication on nature-based tourism and vegetal condition in connection with unsustainable human activities such as bush burning, deforestation and lumbering. Similarly, Thakadu, et al. reported that vegetation often withered as a result of high rate of temperature with short drought especially during dry season. The resultant economic consequence of climate change on nature-based tourism business was estimated to be loss of aesthetic environs and eye-catching terrain at tourism destination and subsequent reduction in number of tourists’ visit. It is pertinent to note that climatic scenario has made some tourist destinations less attractive as wildlife habitat become more porous to attack from human especially in an unprotected environment. By implication, Dube and Kwerepe [3] found out that wildlife; an ingredient of nature-based tourism often migrate to a more secured habitat when the initial homes has been seriously bastardize by a poorly conditioned vegetation cover (vegetation-based tourism) orchestrated by harse climatic conditions.

Major climatic parameters of consideration for the study were rainfall and temperature for the period forty years (1975-2014). The study understood the nature of rainfall and temperature variations, as well as its trend over time. Statistical examination were done based on estimating for the value of a variable Y (i.e. rainfall or temperature), corresponding to a given value of variable X (i.e. time); hence, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was applied. On completion of data entry, in-depth analysis was carried on the climatic parameters using Microsoft Excel.

Observed Changes in Rainfall and Temperature Pattern

The finding of the rainfall and temperature pattern as observed in the study area was presented in Table 1. As shown accordingly, monthly mean rainfall varied among the months of the year as well as temperature. The study revealed that volume of rainfall distribution was extraordinary during the rainy season while the temperature distribution was observed to be significant during the dry season of the year. The rainfall and temperature pattern between the year 1975 to 2014 experienced an upward trend with maximum rainfall observed in year 2010 (1692.500mm) and temperature

Spatio-Temporal Changes Observed in the Study Area

The entire land coverage in the study area was classified into five categories namely: built-up, rock outcrop, dense vegetation, light vegetation and waterbody. Table 2 revealed that dense vegetation accounted for (53.12%), light vegetation (25.27%) and built-up (13.14%) in year 1991. By 2002; built-up increased significantly by 28.22% as well as light vegetation 27.29% while dense vegetation decreases to 37.2% in the study area. Lastly; by year 2015, built-up and light vegetation experienced continued increase with 39.07% and 31.54% respectively; rock outcrop decreased by 5.38% as well as dense vegetation (23.15%) in the total area. The changes in the spatial pattern have a corresponding effective (either decrease or increase) on the land cover; implying a continuous conversion of vegetated area to built-up in recent years as revealed by the study. Arvind, et al_._ [15] highlighted that high rate of human activities and landscape development were response to the quest for residential and commercial construction; connoting a sizeable reduction in the green infrastructure potentials in the study area. Furthermore, anthropogenic activities within the study area made Orimoogunje (2010) [16] reported that peasant farmers engaged in bush burning as a pre-planting operation therefore reducing the biomass condition needed for nature- tourism business in the study area. Similarly, unabated deforestation has been recognized as one of the major force of biodiversity loss as well as threat to robust vegetation distribution [17]. The outcome of this study corroborates with Salami & Mengistu (2008) [18] which found out that there is linkage in the rate of population growth, land cover conversion and climate change especially the reduction of carbon stock of a given area contributing immensely to climate change syndrome. As Knowles and Theron (2010) justified that variation in climatic characteristics associated with vegetation degradation has unquantifiable impact on the environment.

Note: SHIDI = Shannon Diversity Index; SIDI = Simpson Diversity Index Table 2: Species Diversity Observed in the study area.

Species Diversity and Near-Infrared Analysis on Vegetation Greenness

Tourism vegetation potential was expressed in the measurement of plants diversity, vegetation density, spatial condition and healthiness of biomass. Results revealed by Shannon-Wiener Index (SHIDI) showed a decrease in the species diversity as values were 0.54, 0.47 and 0.37 for the year 1991, 2002 and 2015 respectively. The findings imply a gradual decrease in species diversity and evenness as engineered by incessant disturbance to the ecosystem. Similarly, Simpson Diversity Index (SIDI) showed a decrease in the species diversity as values were 0.38, 0.29 and 0.21 for the year 1991, 2002 and 2015 respectively (Table 2). The vegetation index output varied significant based on number of factors which include the climatic characteristic, land-use factors and anthropogenic activities on vegetation cover of the study area [19]. Also, area covered by vegetation indices significantly varied based on epoch of satellite imageries analyzed; negative indices was associated with large change in land cover feature especially in recent years. This study considered the green infrastructure resources needed for tourism activities and this was corresponded with the changes in rainfall and temperature pattern over the years. The NDVI analysis revealed that more land cover changes were observed in the 2002 and 2015 images compared to the 1991 image; this explains a significant drop in the green portion values for the study (Figures 3, 4 and 5).

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More particularly, green portion in-around the ambient of the Warm Spring Resort Centre have witnessed significant decrease as bulk of the green infrastructures were converted to tourism-supporting facilities; Dantama, et al. [20] stated that this reduction was attributed to the human activities in the study area. In addition, increase in human population and corresponding increase in the settlement pattern has equally contributed to reduction in the green portion in the study area. Considering the rainfall and temperature pattern which were on the increased over the year, it was observed that green space available became greener and luxuriant even though incessant vegetation encroachment was on the increase in the study area [21].