Land cover change and plants diversity in the Sahel: A case study from northern Burkina Faso
- 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.
Author: | Abel Kadeba, Blandine Marie Ivette Nacoulma, Amadé Ouedraogo, Yvonne Bachmann, Adjima Thiombiano, Marco SchmidtORCiDGND, Joseph Issaka Boussim |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-551093 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.15287/afr.2015.350 |
ISSN: | 2065-2445 |
ISSN: | 1844-8135 |
Parent Title (English): | Annals of Forest Research |
Publisher: | Forest Research and Management Insitute ICAS |
Place of publication: | Bucureşti |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of Completion: | 2015 |
Date of first Publication: | 2015/03/18 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2020/07/20 |
Tag: | Burkina Faso; geomorphology; land cover changes; land degradation; phytodiversity |
Volume: | 58 |
Issue: | 1 |
Page Number: | 16 |
First Page: | 109 |
Last Page: | 123 |
Note: | 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". |
HeBIS-PPN: | 467547424 |
Institutes: | Angeschlossene und kooperierende Institutionen / Senckenbergische Naturforschende Gesellschaft |
Biowissenschaften / Institut für Ökologie, Evolution und Diversität | |
Fachübergreifende Einrichtungen / Biodiversität und Klima Forschungszentrum (BiK-F) | |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 57 Biowissenschaften; Biologie / 570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie |
Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
Licence (German): | Deutsches Urheberrecht |