TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kadeba, Abel
A1  - Nacoulma, Blandine Marie Ivette
A1  - Ouedraogo, Amadé
A1  - Bachmann, Yvonne
A1  - Thiombiano, Adjima
A1  - Schmidt, Marco
A1  - Boussim, Joseph Issaka
T1  - Land cover change and plants diversity in the Sahel: A case study from northern Burkina Faso
T2  - Annals of Forest Research
N2  - Understanding land cover degradation patterns and the effects of geomorphological units on phytodiversity is important for guiding management decisions and restoration strategies in the Sahelian vulnerables zones. This paper describes land cover degradation by combining Landsat TM image analysis and field data measurements in the Gourouol catchment of the Sahelian zone of Burkina Faso. Erdas Imagine 9.2 and Arc-GIS.10 were applied. The change patterns were obtained by superposing land cover maps for 1992 and 2010. The field data were collected by the mean of inventories according to the Braun-Blanquet phytosociological relevés methods. Plot sizes were 50 m x 20 m for woody species and 10 m x 10 m for herbaceous species. Six land cover types were identified and mapped: cultivated lands, bared lands, lowlands, which all spatially increased; and shrub-steppes, grasslands and water bodies, which all spatially decreased. The dynamic patterns based on the geomorphological units were non-degraded lowlands, stable sand dunes and degraded glacis. High plant diversity was found in lowlands, whereas low diversity occurred in glacis. A significant dissimilarity was observed between communities. The Shannon diversity indices in plant communities were approximately close to ln(species richness). The Pielou indices were close to 1, indicating a species fairly good distribution. Our results showed a variation of land cover over time and the effects of geomorphological units on phytodiversity. Furthermore, this variation helps oppose land degradation in the Sahel.
KW  - land degradation
KW  - land cover changes
KW  - phytodiversity
KW  - geomorphology
KW  - Burkina Faso
Y1  - 2015
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/55109
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-551093
SN  - 2065-2445
SN  - 1844-8135
N1  - All the papers published in Annals of Forest Research are available under an open access policy (Gratis Gold Open Access Licence), which guaranty the free (of taxes) and unlimited access, for anyone, to entire content of the all published articles. The users are free to "read, copy, distribute, print, search or refers to the full text of these articles", as long they mention the source. Also, "users can use, reuse and build upon the material published in the journal but only for non-commercial purposes".
VL  - 58
IS  - 1
SP  - 109
EP  - 123
PB  - Forest Research and Management Insitute ICAS
CY  - Bucureşti
ER  -