ABSTRACT
Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso (~ 2.5 million people), consists of urban, peri-urban and rural areas. In the southern rural district of Koubri land use and vegetation cover changes are linked to population growth, economic activities and land pressure. The study highlights the environmental dynamics between 1992, 2002 and 2018 by multi-temporal mapping and supervised classification using LANDSAT TM (1992), ETM+ (2002) and OLI/TIR (2018) data. Ground truthing, interviews with stakeholders, and questionnaires were used to understand recent land use changes and the causes of land degradation. It was shown that between 1992 and 2018 the surface occupied by bush and grass savannah was reduced from ~65% to ~29% (a decrease of ~37%). By contrast, areas covered by rainfed crops increased from ~32% (1992) to ~43% (2002) and ~58% (2018). The housing area of Koubri grew from 0.08% (1992), to 0.09% (2002) to 28.77% (2018) respectively (onset of urbanisation). Factors contributing to the degradation of ecosystems include climate variability, population pressure, agropastoral practices, overexploitation of natural resources, land speculation, and uncontrolled illegal construction.
