Spatiotemporal Patterns in Land Use/Land Cover Observed by Fusion of Multi-Source Fine-Resolution Data in West Africa

Beatrice Asenso Barnieh, Li Jia (), Massimo Menenti, Le Yu, Emmanuel Kwesi Nyantakyi, Amos Tiereyangn Kabo-Bah, Min Jiang, Jie Zhou, Yunzhe Lv, Yelong Zeng and Ali Bennour
Additional contact information
Beatrice Asenso Barnieh: International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals, Beijing 100094, China
Li Jia: International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals, Beijing 100094, China
Massimo Menenti: State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Le Yu: Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100190, China
Emmanuel Kwesi Nyantakyi: Earth Observation Research and Innovation Centre, University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani P.O. Box 214, Ghana
Amos Tiereyangn Kabo-Bah: Earth Observation Research and Innovation Centre, University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani P.O. Box 214, Ghana
Min Jiang: State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Jie Zhou: Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis & Simulation of Hubei Province, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
Yunzhe Lv: State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Yelong Zeng: State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Ali Bennour: State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-35

Abstract: Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) change is a major global concern and a topic of scientific debate. In West Africa, the key trend among the changes of the past few years is the loss of natural vegetation related to changes in different LULC categories, e.g., water bodies, wetland, and bare soil. However, not all detected changes in these LULC categories are relevant for LULC change management intervention in a resource-constrained continent, as a massive change in the dominant LULC types may be due to errors in the LULC maps. Previous LULC change analysis detected large discrepancies in the existing LULC maps in Africa. Here, we applied an open and synergistic framework to update and improve the existing LULC maps for West Africa at five-year intervals from 1990 to 2020—updating them to a finer spatial resolution of 30 m. Next, we detected spatial–temporal patterns in past and present LULC changes with the intensity analysis framework, focusing on the following periods: 1990–2000, 2000–2010, and 2010–2020. A faster annual rate of overall transition was detected in 1990–2000 and 2010–2020 than in 2000–2010. We observed consistent increases in shrubland and grassland in all of the periods, which confirms the observed re-greening of rangeland in West Africa. By contrast, forestland areas experienced consistent decreases over the entire period, indicating deforestation and degradation. We observed a net loss for cropland in the drought period and net gains in the subsequent periods. The settlement category also gained actively in all periods. Net losses of wetland and bare land categories were also observed in all of the periods. We observed net gains in water bodies in the 1990–2000 period and net losses in the 2010–2020 period. We highlighted the active forestland losses as systematic and issued a clarion call for an intervention. The simultaneous active gross loss and gain intensity of cropland raises food security concerns and should act as an early warning sign to policy makers that the food security of marginal geographic locations is under threat, despite the massive expansion of cropland observed in this study area. Instead of focusing on the dynamics of all the LULC categories that may be irrelevant, the intensity analysis framework was vital in identifying the settlement category relevant for LULC change management intervention in West Africa, as well as a cost-effective LULC change management approach.

Keywords: natural vegetation; intensity analysis; spatial patterns; systematic transitions; random transitions; West Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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