Prospective Mapping of Land Cover and Land Use in The Classified Forest of The Upper Alibori Based on Satellite Imagery

Abstract

The dynamics of land cover and land use in the classified forest of the upper Alibori (FCAS) in relation to the disturbance of agro-pastoral activities is a major issue in the rational management of forest resources. The objective of this research is to simulate the evolutionary trend of land cover and land use in the FCAS by 2069 based on satellite images. Landsat images from 2009, 2014 and 2019 obtained from the earthexplorer-usgs archive were used. The methods used are diachronic mapping and spatial forecasting based on senarii. The MOLUSCE module available under QGIS remote sensing 2.18.2 is used to simulate the future evolution of land cover and land use in the FCAS. The land cover and use in the year 2069 is simulated using cellular automata based on the scenarios. The results show that natural land cover units have decreased while anthropogenic formations have increased between 2009 and 2014 and between 2014 and 2019. Under the "absence multi-criteria zoning (MZM)" scenario over a 50-year interval, land cover and use will be dominated by crop-fallow mosaics (88%). On the other hand, the scenario "implementation of a multicriteria zoning (MZE)", was issued with the aim of reversing the regressive trend of vegetation types by making a rational and sustainable management of resources.