GAS FLARING

Gas flaring which is the burning of associated gas from crude oil, is a common practice in Nigeria. The absence of a strong regulatory framework, which could be brought about by a lack of awareness of the effects on the environment, is one of the primary reasons for its continuous impacts of gas flaring on vegetation. The study assessed vegetation health with the use of GIS at marked distances of analyzed years. There have been numerous studies conducted to demonstrate the negative impacts of gas flaring on the environment, but none have attempted to measure the cumulative long-term impact on vegetation. Furthermore, there hasn’t been much effort in Nigeria to use GIS to evaluate the effects of gas flaring. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) a GIS based change detection methodology, was used to examine how the vegetation in the study area changed over time. This was accomplished by gathering four distinct time series of satellite imagery of the research area at specified distances of 1km and 2km, making use of Landsat 4-Thematic Mapper (TM)/1991, Landsat 5-Thematic Mapper (TM)/1999, Landsat 7-Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+)/2003 and Landsat 8-Operational Land Image(OLI)/2013. The results show that gas flaring has a significant role in altering the natural vegetation, with the impact of gas flaring being more pronounced in areas near the flowstation. Furthermore, results from the year 1991 showed that the NDVI values between 1km and 2km did not significantly differ from one another. However, the 1999,2003 and 2013 indicated significant difference in the NDVI values between marked distances. This study emphasizes the need for a safe distance of 2km for human settlement from gas flare stacks. This study recommends that Government should implement policies, such as the polluter pay principle and/or give out incentives to companies so as to reduce gas flaring.