SPATIAL AND STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF DEFORESTATION IN AN URBAN AREA SINCE 1950: THE POINTE-NOIRE CASE STUDY (R. OF CONGO)

Nowadays several discussions exist about the dramatic expansion of environmental degradation and the solution considered is sustainable development. This requires a great knowledge of the ecosystem pattern, processes and predictability as well as information about the relationship between environmental and human factors. It needs to link spatial pattern and ecological processes at broad spatial and temporal scales. In this purpose, one way is to identify and quantify the environmental and anthropological factors in order to assess the relationship between population and natural forest resources, through the establishment of a physical as well as a human factor balance. The emphasis has been placed on a strategic method in order to improve environmental information and to provide a reliable support for natural resources management. This was done by establishing maps predicting deforestation risks. The predicted African urban expansion for the next decade as well as the emergency and renewed interest in the environmental problematic confer a real significance to this paper. The results permit us to know where natural forest transgresses and in what quantities in six characteristic training zones. How much of this forest has disappeared since 1950 under population and urban pressures and what is the nature of these human pressures? This analysis is required to extrapolate information across scales (temporal and spatial) in order to provide, through dynamic predictive modelling, deforestation predictability support for reasonable landscape management.