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A MULTI-SENSOR EVALUATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF FUELWOOD 
COLLECTION IN NIGERIAN SAVANNA : PRELIMINARY RESULTS 
by 
Janet .E. NICHOL 
Department of Geography 
Bayero University, Kano 
P.M.B. 3011 
Kano 
NIGERIA 
The rapíd population growth rate of many developing 
countries is now perceived as having numerous adverse 
ecological consequences, One source of potential imbalance 
is the greatly increased removal from the landscape of 
woody vegetation, which is the traditional source of fuel 
for both urban and rural populations. 
In densely populated, arid regions, such as that of Kano, 
Nigeria, which are prone to processes of drought and 
desertification,the ecological implications of a negative 
balance between wood productivity and offtake are serious, 
since the removal or degradation of woody vegetation is 
generally regarded as contributory to these processes. 
As part of a research project sponsored by the United 
Nations University, for examining patterns of rural energy 
production and consumption in Kano, Nigeria, different 
types of remote sensing imagery were compared for their 
effectiveness as sources of data on land use and vegetation 
types in the fuelwood hinterland of Kano. This data is 
required in order to estimate productivity of woody 
vegetation, for comparison with felling and lopping intensity 
in different land use zones. 
For selected rural study areas, black and white panchro- 
matic aerial photographs at different scales, side-looking 
airborne radar imagery, and LANDSAT false colour composite 
imagery, were obtained. The different types of imagery were 
evaluated for their ability to provide information on 
1. Present land use 
2. Present live and dead woody vegetation 
3. Change over time in land use and fuelwood 
abundance or shortage. 
Existing aerial photography at 1:25,000 and 1:30,000 
scales was too small for accurate species identification 
or estimates of vegetation condition. However, the detailed 
examination of small ground truth areas, allowed extrapolation 
of this information to the larger study areas. Crown 
diameter of trees in farmed parkland was estimated from the 
air photos, and related to timber volume. 
The side-looking radar imagery, and LANDSAT imagery used, 
were both at the scale of 1:250,000 and at this initial 
stage of the project, manual interpretation was carried out, 
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