Objective: This study aims to characterize and to map vegetation cover in the mountainous region of Tonkpi in order to evaluate forest dynamics by remote sensing. Methodology and Results: This work relied on four satellite images of the scene 198-55 Landsat 4 TM 1990 from Landsat 7 ETM+ in 2000, Landsat 5 TM 2011 and Landsat 8 OLI-SHOTS 2015. Based on field data, classification was conducted using the maximum likelihood method in satellite images (OLI-SHOTS, ETM + and TM) in order to map vegetation from 1990 to 2015. These maps were superimposed to the Digital elevation model produced from an ASTER image in order to assess forest dynamics at altitude levels. The diachronic study of land use revealed a change in the landscape with a significant reduction of dense forest (-35.6%) and crop lands and fallow (-42.14%), and an increase of degraded forests (15.13%) and bare soil land and houses (10.46%). Moreover, high altitudes occupy a large proportion (37.7%) of the landscape (12,284 km 2 ), followed by medium altitudes (34.6%), and low altitudes (27.7%). Concerning bare soil and homes, there is a large increase of the area at low altitudes (88, 96%) while concerning crops and fallow, the area reduction was more pronounced at high altitudes ( -53.64%). The medium European Scientific Journal May 2017 edition Vol.13, No.15 ISSN: 1857 -7881 (Print) e -ISSN 1857 311 altitudes have the highest rate of increase (51.14%) in degraded forests, and the highest decrease (-43.25%) in the dense forests. Conclusion and Application: The study shows that high altitudes occupy the largest proportion of the total area of the region and a change in the landscape due to human activities. Based on the results, we recommend a spatio-temporal monitoring of the net erosion on the mountains in order to maintain its agricultural potential and fight effectively against erosion.
Like Côte d’Ivoire forest area, Abengourou department has not escaped anthropic pressure. The forest in this area was the scene of intense Cocoa farming activities. However, due to the weaknesses and constraints observed in the Cocoa sector, it has been seen that from years 1990 - 2000, most of the farmers have abandoned their Cocoa farms in favor of a gradual conversion in Rubber farming. In fact, this crop is considered to be a new booming income crop that tends to improve and guarantee the farmer’s life quality. This situation leads to an amalgam for the growing of Cocoa or Rubber. This study aims to determine the impact of Cocoa and Rubber farms on the farmer’s life quality in Abengourou (Côte d’Ivoire). Thus, field missions, documents analyze and directive surveys of farmers, cartographic and statistical processing have made it possible to establish correlations between Rubber tree or Cocoa farming and the farmer’s life quality. It follows from the correlations, that after analysis, the Rubber tree would have a positive influence on the farmer’s life quality than Cocoa. Moreover, Human Development Index (HDI) was measured respectively between the Cocoa and Rubber growers in the study area. The HDI of the Cocoa farmers is 0.455 and that of Rubber is estimated to 0.461. So, it is confirmed from these analyses that, in 2016, the growing of Rubber improves the farmer’s life quality more than that of Cocoa in the study area.
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