Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire – Using maps derived from satellite imagery together with on-the-ground data validation, the USAID Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) project has identified West Africa’s hotspots—landscapes that have undergone major environmental changes. This week, the project presented its findings for Côte d’Ivoire at the International Conference on Spatial Observation for Sustainable Management of Forests and Land in Central and West Africa. The data show that Côte d’Ivoire had one of the highest rates of deforestation in the region—and the world-- with 59 percent of dense forest lost from 1975 to 2013. Other types of wooded landscapes are also losing ground to agricultural encroachment, including gallery forests and woodlands. Despite this, Côte d’Ivoire’s Taï Forest represents the largest tract of primary forest left in West Africa.

USAID’s LULC project, implemented by the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey, has been mapping and monitoring the rapid changes occurring across West Africa’s natural and human landscapes. Multi-period maps accurately depict the landscapes of 1975, 2000, and 2013, documenting the growing human footprint on the terrain. They provide a much clearer picture of change—its patterns, magnitudes and driving factors.

Land use information is key for understanding and mitigating problems such as climate change, population growth and the increasing demand for food, accelerating urbanization, and changes in the functioning of ecosystems and the services they provide. West Africa’s land resources are limited, and the region is losing its diverse natural landscapes to timber harvesting, agricultural encroachment, and development.  LULC maps provide critical information for decision-makers who face the challenge of balancing the need to preserve natural ecosystems with the need to grow more food, all within the context of rapidly changing climates.

Through the LULC project, CILSS and 17 partner countries have “wall-to-wall” satellite coverage of West Africa. Maps derived from these satellite images are critical to take stock of the extent and condition of land resources, understand the land use changes, and apply this knowledge to decision-making to address consequences of land and climate change. These LULC maps were compiled in collaboration with environmental scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, the CILSS Agro-meteorology, Hydrology and Meteorology Regional Center (AGRYHMET); and the Comité National de Télédétection et d’Information Géographique (CNTIG).