APPLICATION OF GEOMATICS TO THE MULTICRITERIA ZONING OF THE UPPER ALIBORI FOREST RESERVE IN NORTHERN BENIN (WEST AFRICA)

Abstract

The Forest of Upper Alibori is subject to strong agricultural and pastoral pressures from year to year despite the implementation of a forest management plan. It is therefore appropriate to conduct an integrated and spatialized analysis of the effects of these pressures on plant biodiversity from a spatial planning perspective. The research objective is to establish a multi-criteria zoning of the Upper Alibori Forest Reserve that can reconcile biodiversity conservation and sustainable agropastoral exploitation. A methodological approach based on geomatics was adopted. Hierarchical multi-criteria analysis and cross-layer analysis are the main techniques adopted. The state of plant biodiversity, one of the important criteria for multi-criteria zoning. The intersection of the scientific zoning and the zoning proposed by the riparian population shows a similarity of 54%. In the central core, the similarity between the two types of zoning is 32%. Spatially, this similarity is observed along the Alibori River. At the level of the agricultural series, the two zonings show a similarity level of 23%. The elaboration of an integrated zoning made it possible to distinguish several management series. The management series delimited are made up of the central core (32%), the protection series (11%), the production series (17%), the scientific research series (2%), the service series (2%) and the agropastoral and reforestation series (36%). The implementation of such zoning is the responsibility of the forest administration.