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Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

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IntroductionThe Democratic Republic of the Congo is a country situated <strong>in</strong> the heart of theAfrican cont<strong>in</strong>ent. Its central bas<strong>in</strong> is for the greater part covered with ra<strong>in</strong> forest,the vegetation north and south of this region has known a severe degradation dur<strong>in</strong>gthe last centuries and is now ma<strong>in</strong>ly covered with savannah and steppe vegetation(Résume de la monographie sur la biodiversité, 1997, sp.). Deforestation is a seriousproblem and has negative consequences globally (climate changes) as well as locally(erosion, soil degradation and loss of biodiversity).The Democratic Republic of the Congo has a quadruplicated population s<strong>in</strong>ce 1960(Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2001, sp.), which could have a significant impacton the natural (forest) vegetation. This study will exam<strong>in</strong>e the vegetation dynamics <strong>in</strong>a part of the country, us<strong>in</strong>g satellite imagery. The study area chosen for this purposeis situated <strong>in</strong> the Bandundu prov<strong>in</strong>ce, about 50 km south of Kikwit.The study area can be described as a huge savannah plateau, <strong>in</strong>tersected by denseforest vegetation <strong>in</strong> the river valleys. This forest vegetation consists of “palmerais”(palm groove), “foret galerie” (gallery forest) and “foret claire” (open forest) (Nicolai,1963, pp. 68−79). The dense rural population is ma<strong>in</strong>ly self-sufficient and still useswood as primary source of energy (Fresco, 1986, passim). Increase of this populationis thought to have a manifest impact on the vegetation.Remote sens<strong>in</strong>g has proven to be a very useful tool for this k<strong>in</strong>d of study. Satelliteimages complete the little <strong>in</strong>formation that is available of the area. They are anexcellent tool for a multi-temporal study and visualise not only the visible part ofthe electromagnetic spectrum, but also the Near-Infrared light, which gives extra<strong>in</strong>formation about the vegetation. To cover a long time period, it was necessary to usesatellite data from completely different sources. Images used for this study are:• Corona images taken on the 11 th of June 1965 with an orig<strong>in</strong>al resolution of about2.74 m × 2.74 m.• Landsat image taken on the 16 th of February 1985 with an orig<strong>in</strong>al resolution of30 m × 30 m at nadir.• SPOT images taken on the 2 nd of July 1987 (Id number S1H187070209110); on the25 th of May 1988.• ASTER scene taken on the 21 st of July 2001 with an orig<strong>in</strong>al resolution of15 m × 15 m at nadir <strong>in</strong> the Visual and Near Infrared bands.Image classificationThe image process<strong>in</strong>g was done <strong>in</strong> ILWIS 2.2, a GIS-software created by the ITC(Enschede, 1997), <strong>in</strong> the Netherlands. False colour composites of these images werecreated. These visualise the green light of the electromagnetic spectrum <strong>in</strong> blue, theblue light <strong>in</strong> green and the near-<strong>in</strong>frared light through the red colour.The Corona negatives, which are panchromatic, were put together <strong>in</strong>to a mosaic,enclos<strong>in</strong>g the study area. The rema<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g resolution after the pre-process<strong>in</strong>g was11 m × 11 m, <strong>in</strong>stead of the orig<strong>in</strong>al 2.74 m × 2.74 m.91

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