Impacts of Climate Variability on Tuber Crops in Guinea Savanna Part of Nigeria: A GIS Approach

The study developed a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) database and mapped inter-annual changes in
tuber crop yield as a response to inter-annual rainfall variability in the Guinea Savanna ecological zone of
Nigeria. It also related the spatiotemporal variability in rainfall with tuber yields. Two major tuber crops were
used for this study (i.e. Cassava and Yam). Kriging and other GIS techniques were used for the spatial analysis.
Also, correlation and regression analysis were carried out on the dataset. The study fund out that rainfall varies
from one year to the other (550mm to 2987mm). The results showed that there were significant relationship
between tuber yield and total rainfall (r= 0.68, at p<0.05 for cassava; and r= 0.62, at p<0.05 for yam). The study
concluded that geospatial techniques are ample tools that should be explored further for realistic assessment of
the effects on climate of farming activities.