Mapping Change Detection of LULC on the Cameroonian Shores of Lake Chad and its Hinterland through an Inter-Seasonal and Multisensor Approach

Abstract

The aim of this study is to assess the land use/land cover (LULC) inter-seasonal changes along the Cameroonian shores of Lake Chad and its hinterland using the four generations of Landsat sensors images of MSS, TM, ETM+ and OLI. Identification of land use/land cover inter-seasonal changes is based on classification by Support Vector Machines (SVMs) algorithm. Three major spatial classes of objects are identified: open water, vegetation and marshlands, and bare soils. The results show that, bare soils class has the higher rate, and can reach 67.57% of the study area extent. Moreover, land use/land cover change from one season to another or from one decade to another can be closely linked to evolution of climate conditions. Then open water areas vary little with rate of 1.94% and 7.6% for inter-seasonal changes, and rate of 5.62% and 63.05% for inter-annual changes. Compared to open water, vegetation and marshlands has the most important variation, that is 583.59%. In addition, proportions of bare soils that vary are different between dry seasons and rainy seasons, with a lower and a higher rate of 5.38% and 82.8%. This leads to the conclusion that occupation in the study area is dominated by bare soils principally; occupation class that is most affected by changes is vegetation and marshlands followed by bare soils and then open water and marshlands.