Land cover change and landscape metrics as indicators of vegetation degradation in the Classified Forest of Koulbi (South-West of Burkina Faso)

The quantification of land cover/use changes in West African protected areas is essential for improving their management. The objective of this study was to identify and analyze the land cover changes of the Classified Forest of Koulbi in south-west Burkina Faso between 1986 and 2010 based on supervised image interpretation and the calculation of landscape metrics. In this classified forest the anthropogenic pressure of the last 30 years left significant traces. The following landscape metrics were calculated on the land cover/use map derived from Landsat images: number of patches per class, total area of each class and dominance of the area of the largest patch of the class. We found that the CFK has undergone a transformation from a mosaic of dry forests and tree savannas to dominance of tree savannas. The landscape metrics reveal a decrease of the dry forest area and the dry forest patch numbers. At the same time the dry forest class became more fragmented. The number of tree savanna patches increased and so did the total area of tree savanna.