MAPPING THE DENSE HUMID FOREST OF CAMEROON AND ZAIRE USING AVHRR SATELLITE DATA

Central Africa contains the second largest contiguous rain forest in t he world. The current state of this forest is poorly known. The most r ecent comprehensive national forest distribution maps of the central A frican region are from the period between 1950-1980 and are not repres entative of more recent forest degradation or conversion. In this stud y NOAA-AVHRR data at 1 km resolution have been used to develop current maps of the dense humid forest extent for Zaire and Cameroon. Prelimi nary estimates of the areal extent of the rain forest are made. Valida tion of the AVHRR maps is performed through comparison with high resol ution satellite imagery (Landsat-MSS) and existing maps. Forest cover maps generated by this study are a fundamental step leading to multi-s cale mapping and monitoring of global tropical forests.