Change Detection

There are no significant changes noticeable in the Niokolo-Koba National Park. In the past 10 to 20 years, the environment was quite stable in the park. The long-term effects of tourism activities are not yet detectable.

Some examples of the use of satellite images to detect changes are shown below.

Gallery forests

The two images below are situated in the central northern part of the park. The left image dates 1987, the right dates 1995 (both Landsat TM). The waving line from the top to the bottom of the images is the Gambie river. The red around the river are gallery forests. We can notice that the amount of red around the river is more or less the same in the two pictures.
Also notice the dark blue in the image of 1987, on the right side of the river. This is an area effected by fires (controlled and uncontrolled fires). In the image dating 1995 we can see clearly that the vegetation is recovering quite fast: pink correspondents with new vegetation. The greenish colours in the 1995 image stand for savannah and sparse vegetation.

Landsat Image (1987)	Landsat Image (1995)

Bowals

Bowals are shallow, clay-loam soils, locally hydromorphic during the rains, situated on plateaus or ridges. They can be seen in the centre of the images: brown-red-beige in the image of 1988 (left image) and green-pink-white in the 1995 image (right image). The bowal area has remained about the same in this 7 year-period.
On the changes of slopes we can identify dense forest. This is shown red on the image. Here also, when we compare the two images, the amount of red remains about the same.

Image of 1987	Image of 1995