Abstract
While most studies of community forests in Senegal address issues in institutional and political arrangements for managing forests, this study was carried out to find out how these political and institutional changes embodied in the new approach to forest management impact on land use and land cover change in the country. Using the Missirah Forest in south-eastern Senegal, as a case study, the objective was to quantify the land use and land cover changes that have happened over a twenty four- year period, from 1990 to 2014 using remote sensing. Six land use and land cover types were identified and mapped, namely, gallery forest, tree savanna, shrub savanna, degraded shrub savanna, croplands and settlements. The area of croplands and settlements expanded between 1990 and 2014. The conversion from natural vegetation to croplands (14.45%) was higher than the conversion from cropland to natural vegetation (3%). Between 1990 and 2003, the expansion in croplands was higher than between 1990 and 2003 but the reverse was the case for settlements. Regarding vegetation types, they decreased in cover between the two periods with the exception of shrub savanna that experienced an increase of 1.46% from 1990 to 2003. Transition to less wooded vegetation (31.58%) was higher than transition to more wooded vegetation (13.91%). This study shows that deforestation and forest degradation are still in progress despite the implementation of a management plan for a full rotation.
Highlights
In sub-Saharan Africa, land use and land cover change trends are extremely fast and the direction and rate of change are unstable [1]
Using the Missirah Forest in south-eastern Senegal, as a case study, the research sought to quantify the land use and land cover changes that have happened over a twenty four- year period, from 1990 to 2014 using remote sensing
In the 2014 image a new land cover type designated as degraded shrub savanna was identified as a distinctive land cover type
Summary
In sub-Saharan Africa, land use and land cover change trends are extremely fast and the direction and rate of change are unstable [1]. Land use and land cover changes are often related to both natural and anthropogenic causes. The most important driver of land cover and land use change is the intensive use of natural resources by local communities to satisfy their daily needs [2, 3] in sub-Saharan countries where communities’ livelihoods depend mainly on natural resources. Changes in land use and land cover contribute significantly to alter the environment and ecosystem services that support human needs [4, 5]. To natural resources dependent-societies, land use and land cover change constitute a major challenge to sustainable livelihoods aspirations. To implement remedial strategies to cope with the issue, a good understanding of the direction of change and their extent is needed
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