National Oil Spill Contingency Plan for Cameroon—Vegetation Map

Following the recent construction of the 1,000-kilometer Chad–Cameroon oil pipeline, CSIR was commissioned by the World Bank to prepare a National Oil Spill Contingency Plan for Cameroon. Comprising the core of the plan is an appraisal of the various sources of oil spill risk to the environment and an analysis of environmental sensitivity to oil. Using Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite imagery, a map of the coastal vegetation of Cameroon was prepared as the basis for determining environmental sensitivity. Other ecological factors and geomorphological and socioeconomic criteria also informed the sensitivity analysis. The map depicts the main vegetation types that occupy Cameroon’s littoral zone, highlighting those that could be affected either directly or indirectly by oil spills. It differentiates between four mangrove communities, freshwater swamp forest, two forms of dune forest, and a variety of transformed environments (e.g., urban and rural settlements). In the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan, these are described in terms of their relative sensitivity to contamination by oil spills.

The vegetation map is also a useful tool for general coastal zone management. It depicts a baseline state against which changes in distribution and extent of vegetation types and transformed areas can be measured over time. Trends can be quantified by using the baseline state shown on the vegetation map as a reference point.