4.6 Article

Land Cover Dynamics along the Urban-Rural Gradient of the Port-au-Prince Agglomeration (Republic of Haiti) from 1986 to 2021

Journal

LAND
Volume 11, Issue 3, Pages -

Publisher

MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/land11030355

Keywords

remote sensing/GIS; spatial dynamics; landscape metrics; urban-rural gradient; urbanization

Funding

  1. Academie de Recherche et d'Enseignement Superieur-Commission de la Cooperation au Developpement (ARES-CCD. Exceptional scholarship program)
  2. Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF, Antenor Firmin Scholarship)
  3. Federation Wallonie Bruxelles (FWB, Exceptional Covid-19 measures)

Ask authors/readers for more resources

The landscape of the Port-au-Prince agglomeration in Haiti has experienced significant changes due to urban expansion and rapid population growth. The urban and peri-urban areas have seen an increase in built-up and bare land, while the rural area has decreased. This has been accompanied by a decline in vegetation in the peri-urban zone. The lack of territorial development planning by public authorities has contributed to these changes.
The landscape of the Port-au-Prince agglomeration in the Republic of Haiti has undergone profound changes linked to (peri-)urban expansion supported by rapid demographic growth. We quantify the land cover dynamics along the urban-rural gradient of the Port-au-Prince agglomeration using Landsat images from 1986, 1998, 1999, 2010, and 2021 coupled with geographic information systems and landscape ecology analysis tools. The results show that over 35 years the acreage of the urban zone increased seven-fold while that of the peri-urban area increased five-fold, to the detriment of the rural zone, which was reduced by 14%. The dynamics of the landscape composition along the urban-rural gradient are characterized by a rapid progression of built-up and bare land in urban and peri-urban zones and by fields in the rural zone, in contrast to the more accentuated regression of vegetation in the peri-urban zone. The landscape of the study area has undergone significant changes due to the high demand for housing resulting from rapid population growth, in the context of a lack of territorial development planning by public authorities. This impacts the sustainability of socio-economic and ecological processes in an area where populations are highly dependent on plant resources. Our results underline the necessity to orient territorial development planning in urban, peri-urban and rural zones through an integrated and participatory approach.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available