Contribution of remote sensing and GIS to the mapping of land use changes in the Lobo watershed in Ivory Coast

Abstract

This study of land cover changes in the Lobo watershed (12767 km2) is based on multispectral TM (1986), ETM+ (2008) and OLI (2015) images from Landsat satellites and on field surveys as a control. The processing applied to the images fed a database managed in a GIS. The mapping of land use in 1986, 2008 and 2015 made it possible to assess the changes between the different dates. The "cropfallow" and "crop" classes have always been largely dominant, but with strong variations for each of them, both varying in opposite directions. As early as 1986, the forest class represented only 4.6 % of the study area (584 km2). Its share fell to 0.96 % (123 km2) in 2008, before rising to 2.3 % (299 km2) in 2015, partly in connection with the development of shrub crops. Over the study period, the forest declined considerably in the areas where it should have been protected, the classified forest of Haut­ Sassandra and the Marahoué National Park. [Translated with https://www.deepl.com/fr/translator (free version)].