Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Forced migration due to insurgency has emerged as a major cause of land use and land cover (LULC) change with devastating effects on forest resources. The paper explores the effects of internally displaced persons (IDPs) migration in Borno State, Nigeria, in terms of vegetation dynamics at pre-incident (2013), during-incident (2017), and post-incident (2021) through multi-index satellite remote sensing. The Landsat 8 imagery was processed in Google Earth Engine (GEE) and calculated into NDVI, EVI, and SAVI and applied to Northern, Central, and Southern Borno sub-regions. There was a decrease in NDVI in the Central Region (0.160 to 0.145) and an increase in the South (0.210 to 0.280), indicating partial cover recovery. EVI had decreases in all the regions, and the Central Region had the highest decrease (0.235 → 0.175, -25.5%). The separation between NDVI and EVI/SAVI in the South indicates that the extent of vegetation cover grew and the quality of the structure decreased- as is expected when natural woodland is replaced by low-density farmland. Findings confirm that insurgency-driven displacement produces measurable, region-specific, and persistent vegetation degradation. Sustained GEE-based monitoring and land rehabilitation are recommended.</p>