Using Remote Sensing Technics for Land Use Land Cover Changes Analyses from 1950s to 2000s in Somone Tropical Coastal Lagoon, Senegal

Abstract

In many developing countries, some natural areas are faced with gaps in appropriate map coverage mainly on land use and land cover (LULC) changes. This situation makes it difficult to plan and implement natural environmental protection and natural resource management programs. Remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) are excellent tools for mapping LULC changes. This study investigated LULC changes in ‘Somone’ coastal lagoon in Senegal using multisource remote sensed data. Data sets included aerial photographs recorded in March 1954, and February 1978, as well as satellite images recorded in February 2003 and April 2016. All images were geometrically corrected and segmented. Photos and/or images interpretations were made with the aid of computer and post-classification change detection technique was applied to classify multisource data and to map changes. Stratified sampling was used to assess all classification results. The accuracies of image classifications averaged 65% (1954), 62% (1978), 79% (2003) and 88% (2016). The post-classification analysis resulted in the largest overall accuracy of 66, 72.7, 72.4 and 80.6% for the 1954–1978, 1978-2003 and 2003–2016 image pairs, respectively. Results indicated an increase in Settlements, from 0.29% in 1954 to 9.21% in 2016, the expansion of the Sabkha, from 5.29% in 1954 to 18.48% in 2016. The mangrove forest has experimented a reduction between 1954 and 1978 (from 4.07% to 0.56%) and a regeneration (linked to the protection and preservation policies within the protected area) from the year 2003 to 2016 (from 1.44% to 2.65%). However, the forest areas were greatly reduced (from 51.06% in 1954 to 10.86% in 2016) and replaced by Settlements (urbanization) as well as Croplands.