Tracking Land Use/Land Cover Dynamics in Cloud Prone Areas Using Moderate Resolution Satellite Data: A Case Study in Central Africa

Bikash Basnet,Anthony Vodacek

doi:10.3390/rs70606683

Abstract

Tracking land surface dynamics over cloud prone areas with complex mountainous terrain is an important challenge facing the Earth Science community. One such region is the Lake Kivu region in Central Africa. We developed a processing chain to systematically monitor the spatio-temporal land use/land cover dynamics of this region over the years 1988, 2001, and 2011 using Landsat data, complemented by ancillary data. Topographic compensation was performed on Landsat reflectances to avoid the strong illumination angle impacts and image compositing was used to compensate for frequent cloud cover and thus incomplete annual data availability in the archive. A systematic supervised classification was applied to the composite Landsat imagery to obtain land cover thematic maps with overall accuracies of 90% and higher. Subsequent change analysis between these years found extensive conversions of the natural environment as a result of human related activities. The gross forest cover loss for 1988–2001 and 2001–2011 period was 216.4 and 130.5 thousand hectares, respectively, signifying significant deforestation in the period of civil war and a relatively stable and lower deforestation rate later, possibly due to conservation and reforestation efforts in the region. The other dominant land cover changes in the region were aggressive subsistence farming and urban expansion displacing natural vegetation and arable lands. Despite limited data availability, this study fills the gap of much needed detailed and updated land cover change information for this biologically important region of Central Africa. These multi-temporal datasets will be a valuable baseline for land use managers in the region interested in developing ecologically sustainable land management strategies and measuring the impacts of biodiversity conservation efforts.

Highlights

Human-induced land cover change is increasingly affecting the biophysics, biogeochemistry and biogeography of the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere [1]
The objectives of this study are to provide a recent perspective for land use/land cover types found in the dynamic and complex Lake Kivu region, to monitor the spatio-temporal dynamics of land cover change in the region over three periods (1988, 2001 and 2011), and analyze the driving forces behind the dynamics of these changes in the region
Using multi-temporal Landsat data, we identified, quantified and analyzed decadal scale land cover change in the Lake Kivu region from 1988 to 2011

Summary

Introduction

Human-induced land cover change is increasingly affecting the biophysics, biogeochemistry and biogeography of the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere [1]. These changes are occurring at a range of spatial scales from local to global and at temporal frequencies of days to millennia [2]. Hansen and Loveland (2012) [4] emphasizes the need for timely, accurate observations documenting land cover change to be more pressing than ever given the changing state of global climate. There have been relatively few efforts to identify the spatial and temporal patterns of land cover change in the Lake Kivu region, the focus of this study

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Conclusion