TITLE:
Analysis of the Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Land Use in the Bamboutos Mountains of the West Region of Cameroon
AUTHORS:
Guy Herman Tchoutezou Zanguim, Abubakar Ali Shidiki, Alphonse Loic Tcheugoue Tientcheu, Martin Ngankam Tchamba
KEYWORDS:
Bamboutos Mountains, GIS, Mapping, Degradation, Landscape, Restoration
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Forestry,
Vol.12 No.2,
April
21,
2022
ABSTRACT: The current level of knowledge of the biophysical
situation, human activity and governance in the Bamboutos Mountains does not
shed enough light on the dynamics of the
vegetation, the socio-economic aspects and ecological opportunities that
are essential for a successful restoration initiative in this degraded landscape
of the Bamboutos mountain ecosystems. The objective of the study was to map and
analyze the dynamics of land use from Landsat images of 1980, 2000 and 2021.
Supervised classification by maximum likelihood was applied and the dynamics
were analyzed using area curves and calculations. The cartographic results were
used to produce land use maps. The analysis of the land cover dynamics shows that the evolutionary trend of the
vegetation formations is essentially regressive for agro-forests and
dense forests at -21.20% and -3.62% respectively. The classes that showed a clear progression were bare soil
(9.78%), crop land (8.03%), built-up areas (5.19%) and shrubby savannahs
and grassland (1.84%). Agriculture, livestock grazing and demographic pressure
are the main causes of land degradation and mutation of the landscape. The
results of this study provide an understanding of the land-use history of this landscape, and a solid basis for planning a restoration initiative.
They provide guidance on priority areas and types of
restoration intervention from a social, economic and ecological perspective.