Quantification of anthropogenic effects in the landscape of Lubumbashi

In order to understand the dynamic of the (sub)urbanisation and so, to quantify the anthropogenic effects of the rapid growth of tropical cities, it is crucial to find and apply valuable methods. In this contribution, the transferability of the Rüdisser et al. (2012) «Distance to Nature» hemeroby assessment method to the landscape surrounding the city of Lubumbashi (DRC) is evaluated. That methodology has the advantage of taking structural connectivity into account by computing the distance to natural habitats. As it had never been applied to an African city before, some adjustments (fitting of the local land uses types into the hemeroby levels designed to Austria) and amendments (suppression of the final classification into hemeroby level simplification) are proposed. Moreover, an analysis of the decanal (2002-2013) hemeroby dynamics is presented. Results suggest that the Distance to Nature methodology is transferable but requires good field knowledge to define reference habitats and identify them in the Landsat classified images. There was a dramatic decrease of the «natural» and «near-natural» levels in the study extent during the studied period. In addition, 32% of the land underwent anthropisation increase, mostly around cities and following a ribbon development.