This study was conducted on Manoka Island (Littoral Region of Cameroon) with the aim of analyzing climate change vulnerability and local adaptation strategies based on the local community’s perceptions and biophysical evidence. We used household surveys, focus group discussions, field observation, GIS, and remote sensing to collect data on variables of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Historical changes in rainfall and temperature, mangrove cover, and the occurrence of extreme climatic events were used as indicators of exposure. Property losses and income structure were used as indicators of sensitivity, while human, natural, social, financial, and physical assets represented adaptive capacity. 89 households were interviewed in the nine settlements of the island. Results show that Manoka Island is experiencing irregular rainfall patterns (with average annual values deviating from the mean by −1.9 to +1.8 mm) and increasing temperature (with annual values deviating from the mean by −1.2 to +3.12). The dynamics of the coastline between 1975 and 2017 using EPR show average setbacks of more than ±3 m/year, with erosion levels varying depending on the period and location. The number of households perceiving extreme climatic events like seasonal variability, flood, and rain storm was higher. From respondents’ perception, housing and health are the sectors most affected by climate change. The reported high dependence of households on fishing for income, their overall low livelihood diversification, and their poor access to climate information reported by 65% of respondents portray their poor adaptive capacity. Local response initiatives are ineffective and include among others constructing buildings on stilts and using car wheels to counter the advancement of seawater inland. The study concludes that households on Manoka Island are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Income diversification, mangrove reforestation, the development of sustainable supply chains for wood fuel, and sustainable fish smoking devices are the main pathways for adaptation planning in this area.

La région de l’Est Cameroun concentre la grande part de ressources minières prouvées et potentielles du pays. Elle est actuellement le principal foyer de l’extraction minière notamment dans la commune de Bétaré-Oya. Cette activité s’est accentuée dès 2007 avec l’« opération sauvegarde de l’or » lancée par le ministère des Mines en prévision de la mise en eau du barrage hydroélectrique de Lom-Pangar. Cependant, les mutations environnementales que les activités minières induisent remettent en question les perspectives de développement à long terme des localités et soulèvent de nombreux problèmes. Cette étude repose sur une démarche empirique. Elle analyse les mutations environnementales induites par les activités extractives à Bétaré-Oya afin d’évaluer les enjeux de justice environnementale. Il en ressort que ces enjeux formulent localement la prise en compte, au-delà des compensations matérielles et financières, de l’identité collective des communautés impactées, de leurs rapports d'attachement au territoire, leurs besoins/préoccupations, de leur culture, de leurs droits territoriaux et de leur droit à une existence décente conforme à leurs valeurs et croyances. La participation de ces communautés dans les prises de décision est alors nécessaire afin d’articuler convenablement la soutenabilité des transformations environnementales induites, la préservation des liens entre nature et patrimoine culturel, et l’accompagnement des communautés dans leurs aspirations légitimes à la prospérité.

For more than four decades, the Gulf of Guinea’s coasts have been undergoing a significant phenomenon of erosion, resulting from the pressures of both anthropogenic and marine weather forcings. From the coasts of West Africa (Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Togo, and Nigeria) to those of Central Africa (Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Cameroon), the phenomenon has been growing for more than four decades. The southern Cameroonian coastline from Kribi to Campo has become the scene of significant environmental dynamics that render it vulnerable to coastal erosion, which appears to be the major hazard of this coastal territory and causes a gradual degradation of the vegetative cover, thereby leading to the degradation of the coast’s land/ground cover and human-made infrastructure. The objective of this work is to analyze the kinematics of the Kribian coastline between 1973 and 2020; to quantify the levels of retreat, accretion, and stability; and finally, to discuss the factors influencing the evolution of the coastline. The methodological approach is based on the large-scale processing of Landsat images with a spatial resolution of 30 m. Then, small-scale processing is carried out around the autonomous port of Kribi using Pléiades and Google Earth images from the years 2013, 2018, and 2020 with a 0.5 m spatial resolution. The Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) version 5 and ArcMap 10.5^® tool are used to model coastal kinematics. In addition, the dynamics of the agro-industrial plantations are assessed via satellite images and landscape perception. Environmental degradation is measured with respect to the entire Cameroonian coastline through the supervised classification of Landsat images (1986–2020). The results show that erosion is in its initial phase in Kribi because significant retreats of the coastline are noticeable over the period from 2015–2020. Thus, between 1973 and 2020, the linear data present a certain stability. In total, +72.32% of the line remained stable, with values of +1.3% for accretion and +26.33% for erosion—obtained from Landsat images of 30 m resolution—with an average retreat of +1.3 m/year and an average accretion of 0.9 m/year between 1973–2020. Based on high-resolution images, between 2013 and 2019, the average retreat of the coastline on the Kribian coast was −8.5 m/year and the average accretion was about 7 m/year. Agro-industrial plantations are responsible for environmental degradation. Thus, at SOCAPALM in Apouh, there has been a clear growth in plantations, which has fallen from 53% in 1990 to 78% in 2020, i.e., an increase of 25% of its baseline area. This is linked to the fact that plantations are growing significantly, with increases of 16% in 1990, 28% in 2000, and 29% in 2020, for old plantations.

The coast is the most dynamic part of the Earth’s surface due to its strategic position at the interface of the land and the sea. It is, therefore, exposed to hazards and specific risks because of the geography as well as the geological and environmental characteristics of different countries. The coastal environment is essentially dynamic and evolving in time and space, marked by waves, tides, and seasons; moreover, it is subjected to many marine and continental processes (forcing). This succession of events significantly influences the frequency and severity of coastal hazards. The present paper aims at describing and characterizing the hazards and vulnerabilities on the Cameroonian coast. Cameroon possesses 400 km of coastline, which is exposed to various hazards. It is important to determine the probabilities of these hazards, the associated effects, and the related vulnerabilities. In this study, in this stable intraplate setting, the methodology used was diverse and combined techniques for the study of the shore and methods for the treatment of climatic data. Also, historical data were collected during field observations and from the CRED website for all the natural hazards recorded in Cameroon. In addition, documents on climate change were consulted. Remotely sensed data, combined with GIS tools, helped to determine and assess the associated risks. A critical grid combining a severity and frequency analysis was used to better understand these hazards and the coastal vulnerabilities of Cameroon. The results show that Cameroon’s coastal margins are subject to natural processes that cause shoreline changes, including inundation, erosion, and accretion. This study identified seven primary hazard types (earthquakes, volcanism, landslides, floods, erosion, sea level rise, and black tides) affecting the Cameroonian coastline, with the erosion rate exceeding 1.15 m/year at Cape Cameroon. Coastal populations are continuously threatened by these natural or man-induced hazards, and they are periodically subjected to catastrophic disasters such as floods and landslides, as experienced in Cameroon. In addition, despite the existence of the National Contingency Plan devised by the Directorate of Civil Protection, National Risk, and Climate Change Observatories, the implementation of disaster risk reduction and mitigation strategies is suboptimal.

Cet article examine les facteurs de production des risques dits « naturels » dans les grandes villes du Cameroun. D’une approche historique, il ressort que l’établissement d’agglomérations dans des sites d’aménagement difficile est à la base du problème. Le manque de ressources ainsi que la forte croissance démographique qui caractérisent les pays les moins avancés (PMA) en général et le Cameroun en particulier sont du point de vue anthropique les causes de la forte sensibilité aux risques naturels. Il se pose aussi le problème de l’ambiguïté du système foncier qui n’aide pas à la maîtrise de l’espace. L’incapacité des autorités et de la protection civile à gérer l’espace urbain consolide la vulnérabilité. Les changements climatiques diminuent la perception et l’acceptation des risques par les populations et augmentent leur fréquence.

Cameroon territory is experiencing significant land use and land cover (LULC) changes since its independence in 1960. But the main relevant impacts are recorded since 1990 due to intensification of agricultural activities and urbanization. LULC effects and dynamics vary from one region to another according to the type of vegetation cover and activities. Using remote sensing, GIS and subsidiary data, this paper attempted to model the land use and land cover (LULC) change in the Centre Region of Cameroon that host Yaoundé metropolis. The rapid expansion of the city of Yaoundé drives to the land conversion with farmland intensification and forest depletion accelerating the rate at which land use and land cover (LULC) transformations take place. This study aims at assessing the impacts of both agriculture and urbanization on the LULC change in the Centre Region of Cameroon. A detailed LULC map from MAPBOX high resolution images and three LULC maps were produced from Landsat TM-OLI images (1984-2015). A maximum likelihood classification techniques using ERDAS Imagine, showed forest decline with a total loss of 54% in thirty years. Also, Landsat and MAPBOX images to which we added 1951 aerial photograph and SPOT 6 (2006) were used to analyse urban growth in the city of Yaoundé. The results show a remarkable urban spatial spread of the metropolis between 1951 and 2015, with a peak in 2000. Images processing enabled us to analyse the long term dynamics of LULC change since the 1950s in this Region using ArcGIS & QGIS software’s. Based on this dynamic, a LULC projection map was produced using Markov model on IDRISI Selva, demonstrating the decrease of the dense forest (45% in 2015 to 0.25% in 2050). It was estimated that by 2050, the entire dense forest can be depleted if nothing is done, while only 12.67% of the secondary forest would remain in the Region. Such a projected map is very useful to decision makers for council development and urban planning. This effective forest depletion ties with the hypothesis that urbanization of Yaoundé and its secondary surrounding satellite cities (within a radius of 30-100km) is a veritable driving force of deforestation.