Land Use and Land Cover Change in a Community-Managed Forest in South-Eastern Senegal Under a Formal Forest Management Regime

Abstract

While most studies of community forests in Senegal address issues in institutional and political arrangements for managing forests, this study was carried out to find out how these political and institutional changes embodied in the new approach to forest management impact on land use and land cover change in the country. Using the Missirah Forest in southeastern Senegal, as a case study, the objective was to quantify the land use and land cover changes that have happened over a twenty four- year period, from 1990 to 2014 using remote sensing. Six land use and land cover types were identified and mapped, namely, gallery forest, tree savanna, shrub savanna, degraded shrub savanna, croplands and settlements. The area of croplands and settlements expanded between 1990 and 2014. The conversion from natural vegetation to croplands (14.45%) was higher than the conversion from cropland to natural vegetation (3%). Between 1990 and 2003, the expansion in croplands was higher than between 1990 and 2003 but the reverse was the case for settlements. Regarding vegetation types, they decreased in cover between the two periods with the exception of shrub savanna that experienced an increase of 1.46% from 1990 to 2003. Transition to less wooded vegetation (31.58%) was higher than transition to more wooded vegetation (13.91%). This study shows that deforestation and forest degradation are still in progress despite the implementation of a management plan for a full rotation.