TITLE:
Monitoring Forest Recovery in Protected Forests of Northern Côte d’Ivoire Using Landsat Imagery and Intensity Change Analysis
AUTHORS:
N’Guessan Simon Andon, Avy Stéphane Koffi, Farid Traoré, Patrick N’Gatta
KEYWORDS:
Forest Degradation, Reforestation, Forest Cover Monitoring, Intensity Change Analysis, Desertification
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Remote Sensing,
Vol.11 No.2,
June
13,
2022
ABSTRACT: In this paper, the initiatives of reforestation of
the national forests of the North of the Côte d’Ivoire were examined using geomatics and the analysis of
change of intensity by taking the case of the protected Forest of Badénou
(PFB). A spatial analysis based on multi-spectral and multi-temporal Landsat
imagery was carried out to assess land cover changes in the (PFB) over the past
two decades and determine whether patterns of change in terms of the intensity
of gains/losses of each of the land cover classes were active or dormant
between the period before (2000-2013) and after (2013-2019) the reforestation
initiative. Five main classes were identified: forest (dry deciduous and
gallery forests), tree savannah, shrub/grassy savannah (including agricultural
lands), bare lands (bare soils and degraded land areas), and water course. All
classes were satisfactorily classified, with an excellent producer’s and user’s
and overall accuracies and very good Kappa coefficients. The results showed
that between 2000 and 2019, the forest cover in the PFB increased from 7778 ha
to 5054 ha, a decrease was marked between 2000 and 2013 of approximately 60%
compared to its size in 2000, while a slight increase between 2013 and 2019
(4645 ha to 5054 ha) i.e. around 9%)
certainly due to the reforestation since 2016. As for the annual intensities of
change for each class in both study periods, changes (gain or loss) in forest
and tree savanna were relatively dormant after reforestation, while annual bare
land gain was relatively active and marked, indicating that degradation of
forests remains a threat to the sustainability of the PFB. Forest degradation
has occurred mainly in the eastern parts of the PFB, while the central parts
have regained more tree cover. These results can help identify conservation and
restoration priorities and improve the overall management of the PFB.