Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso (˜ 2,5 million people), consists of urban, peri-urban and rural areas. In the southern rural district of Koubri land use and vegetation cover changes are linked to population growth, economics activities and pressure. The study highlights the environmental dynamics between 1992, 2002 and 2018 by multi-temporal mapping and supervised classification using Landsat TM (1992), ETM+ (2002) and OLI/TIRS (2018) data. Ground truthing, interviews with stakeholders and questionnaires were used to understand recent land use changes and the causes of land degradation. It was shown that between 1992 and 2018 the surface occupied by bush and grass savanna was reduced from 65 % to 29 % (a decrease of 37 %). By contrast areas covered by rainfed crops increased from 32 % (1992), to 43 % (2002) and 58 % (2018). The housing area of Koubri grew from 0,08 % (1992) to 0,09 % (2002) to 28,77 % (2018) respectively (onset of urbanisation). Factors contributing of the degradation of ecosystems include climate variability, population pressure, agropastaral pratices, over incontrolled illegal construction.

Regression of vegetation cover, climate variability, agro-pastoral pratices, Koubri