Remote sensing and deforestation in humid tropical region: case of Bambouto mountain in West Cameroon

A diachronic study of landscapes base on remote sensing data, has been realized on mount Bambouto in the humid tropical mountain region, through soil occupation analyses. It is a volcanic massif situated in the western part of Cameroon. It has an altitude of 2740 m. The objective is to evaluate the anthropic preasure on deforestation within this zone in order to predie the consequences on the area within a short period. The successive ways in which people occupy the soil within a period of about 30 years have thus been evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively on the bases of MSS images of 1978, Tm images of 1988, ETM+ of 2001 and 2007 of Landsat. In these images, the successive application of the index of vegetation and of a supervised classification couple with field observations, digital terrain model and with population data which display serious soils degradation of the volcanic massif from the 1980s, due to continous growing anthropic preasures. In all, between 1978 and 2007, the density of population became 17 times more important more than 43 000 ha of the massif soils has been deforested, this correspond to 1 483 ha/year. IF this velocity of deforestation is maintain, most of the natural vegetation in the Bambouto massif will disappear in 2029