ISSN: 2141-0992 April 2022 Katsina-Ala Multidisciplinary Journal 3(2) ©College of Education, Katsina-Ala 20 GEOSPATIAL MAPPING OF SETTLEMENT POPULATION: A CASE STUDY OF GOKANA L.G.A. OF RIVERS STATE OF NIGERIA EMMANUEL M. MENEGBO Department of Surveying and Geoinformatics, Captain Elechi Amadi Polytechnic, Port Harcourt, Nigeria e-mail: nenibarini@yahoo.com ABSTRACT The acquisition of reliable spatial data is important to provide an overview of developments of areas with significant changes in population, especially for the remote towns of the Third World. Information derived from Earth observation satellites can assist and relieve organizations struggling with non-functioning infrastructure and allow for effective infrastructural planning. The specific objective of this work was to estimate Gokana Local Government Area settlements population using Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. Post-classification landuse and landcover data was downloaded from Global land cover 30 and similarly, the Raster dataset of estimated population downloaded from Worldpop. The raster dataset was masked to the study area. Vector datasets were matched and clipped to the study area using Quantum Geographic Information System (QGIS) desktop software. The land cover data was vectorised and geometry fixed. A selection query was carried out to separate the settlement areas from other land uses. Zonal statistics was used to estimate the population of settlements. The result shows that Bodo has the largest population with 11450 inhabitants and Yeghe with the lowest population of 154 people. The total settlement size of the Gokana LGA is 29781000m2. However, Bomu, Gbe, Lewe and Nwebiara were left out of the study due to inaccurate land use dataset used in this research. This research has demonstrated the use of remote sensing together with GIS applicability in land use patterns and degree of urbanization in relation to population and establishment of infrastructure. Keywords: Geospatial Mapping; Landcover; population; settlements; Gokana LGA Introduction The United Nations projected that approximately over 189 million people will live in Nigerian cities by 2050 with the world's population in rural areas projected at 3.4 billion in 2021(UN, 2021). This number is expected to decline to 3.1 billion in 2050 (UN, 2021). Mapping population accurately and its distribution in hazardous areas is important in planning, policy and decision making (Mossoux et al., 2018). For humanitarian activities, many NGOs are turning to remotely sensed data and geographical information systems (GIS) to estimate population, using high resolution dataset. There are many data sources with various methodologies adapted in acquisition and processing to accurately estimate human population distribution. According to Yang et al, (2019), Population information is aggregated over administrative units, such as settlements, towns, Local Government Areas and states, as in the case of Nigeria. For effective planning, accurate information is a requirement to determine over- population as it’s still a big problem in many parts of the world. The impacts of overpopulation are (GAF, 1999):