Author(s)

José Elvire Boukeng Djiongo^1,2, André Desrochers¹, Marie Louise Tiencheu Avana³, Damase Khasa¹, Louis Zapfack⁴, Éric Fotsing⁵

¹Department of Wood and Forest Sciences, Faculty of Forestry, Geography and Geomatics, Laval University, Quebec, Canada.
²Garoua Wildlife School, Garoua, Cameroun.
³Department of Forestry, Faculty of Agronomy and Agricultural Sciences, University of Dschang, Dschang, Cameroon.
⁴Department of Plant Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Yaoundé 1, Yaoundé, Cameroon.
⁵Department of Computer Engineering, University Institute of Technology Fotso Victor University of Dschang, Bandjoun, Cameroon.

We evaluated the dynamics of land use in the Bouba Ndjidda National Park (BNNP) and adjacent areas, in northern Cameroon. Using a maximum likelihood supervised classification of satellite images from 1990 to 2016, coupled with field and a socio-economic survey, we performed a robust land-use classification. Between 1990 and 2016, the area included eight classes of land use, with the largest in 1990 being the woody savannah (42.9%) followed by the gallery forest (20.2%) and the clear forest (16.3%). Between 1990 and 1999, the gallery forest lost 64.8% of its area mostly to the benefit of woody savannahs. Between 1999 and 2016, the largest loss of area was that of the clear forest, which decreased generally by 43.2% in favor of woody savannah. Rates of increase of crop field areas were 59.6% and 78.8% respectively for the periods of 1990 to 1999 and 1999 to 2016 to the detriment of woody savannahs. We attribute the changes in land use observed mainly to the increasing human population and associated agriculture, overgrazing, fuelwood harvesting and bush fires. The exploitation of non-timber forest products and climatic factors may also have changed the vegetation cover. We recommend the implementation of farming techniques with low impact on the environment such as agroforestry.

Remote Sensing, Spatio-Temporal Dynamics, Bouba Ndjidda National Park, Vegetation Cover, Land Use

Boukeng Djiongo, J. , Desrochers, A. , Avana, M. , Khasa, D. , Zapfack, L. and Fotsing, É. (2020) Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Land Use in the Bouba Ndjidda National Park and Its Adjacent Zone (North Cameroun). Open Journal of Forestry, 10, 39-57. doi: 10.4236/ojf.2020.101004.