Rate Of Land Cover Change And Its Determinants In The Soudano-Guinea Transition Zone Of Benin Republic

Abstract

The paper assesses land cover dynamics and its associated drivers in the soudano-guinea transition zone of Benin Republic, using both spatial and non-spatial data. Multispectral and multi temporal Landsat imageries (Landsat TM of 1986, ETM+ of 2000 and OLI-TIRS of 2013) were used for the analysis of land cover dynamics through a supervised classification. Logistic Multiple Regression model is used to analyse the relationship between the rate of land cover change and nine explanatory variables considered as potential factors of land cover change rate. Land cover change rate was estimated to an average of -4.34% annually. This rate appears higher than the national rate estimated at -1.2% by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The rate of change classified into four modalities ranging from -8.77 to -1.13, show a gradual decrease towards the northern part of the study area. From the R², it is observed that the nine variables explained about 35.30% of the occurrence of land cover change. Variables such as ‘rank of agriculture in the source of income’ and ‘accessibility’ are significantly influencing the rate of land cover change in the study area.  The paper further advocates for the need to dwell more on indirect factors which remotely influence environmental dynamics.

Key Words: Land cover, Rate of change, Benin, Logistic multiple regression, Determinants