Climatic and demographic determinants of vegetation cover in northern Cameroon

The objective of the study was to evaluate the spatio-temporal impacts of seasonal rainfall and urban population growth on the variations in normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in north Cameroon, which includes climates from south to north, the Sudanese and Sahelian climates. To this end, 48 points of measured rainfall were interpolated based on the kriging method at a spatial resolution of 8 km in accordance with the NOAA-AVHRR NDVI data set. Relationships between rainfall and NDVI, on the one hand, and urban population growth and NDVI, on the other, were analysed considering the 79 administrative units (AUs) in Cameroon. Seasonal (rainy season) variations of the vegetation cover were studied for the period 1987–2002 using the NDVI product at 8 km (NOAA-AVHRR) and 1 km (SPOT-VEGETATION) of spatial resolution. This article emphasizes the importance of the urban signal for the NDVI studies at finer scales, specifically in tropical areas. © 2012, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.