Land cover changes and landscape pattern dynamics in Senegal and Guinea Bissau borderland

Different levels of climatic, agricultural, demographic, political and socioeconomic change have been detected in West African countries. For many years the human impact on the region was negligible, due to the low population density. However, in the last decades, demographic increase has accelerated exploitation of the natural resources and consequently the degradation of the ecosystems. Land cover degradation and landscape changes are more or less pronounced according to politic and socio-economic conditions of each country. In this study, a region located on the borderland of north Guinea-Bissau and south Senegal, is analyzed with regard to land cover and landscape trends, considering the socio-economic factors that drive them and the borderline effect. In this analysis, remote sensing data (Landsat TM, ETM+ and OLI data) were used to obtain four land cover maps for the years 1990, 2002, 2010 and 2015. The results show a similar landscape behavior in both countries, directly related to similar socio-economic practices. Forest area increase in both countries and there is a reduction in Agriculture/Bare soil areas until 2010. Main causes may be associated to the rural exodus, resulting from the conflict for independence of Casamance, which affects the borderland region of Senegal and Guinea Bissau, or to the conversion of agricultural areas into cashew orchards. In opposition, between 2010 and 2015, Forest area decrease and Agriculture/Bare soil increase, due to the recent trend of conversion of old cashew orchards into traditional fields of cereals and peanut. An increase in landscape fragmentation is observed in the period under analysis, revealing a heterogenization trend, which can be related to the adoption of similar human practices, in the last decades.