In Burkina Faso, forest areas are losing several hectares of their surface area every year as a result of anthropogenic pressures and climate change. The Kou watershed is no exception to this trend. The aim of this research is to assess the spatio-temporal dynamics of vegetation cover in the Kou watershed using Landsat images. To this end, Landsat TM, Landsat ETM+ and OLI 8 satellite images from September and March (1986 to 2021) were used. Operations on Envi 5.3, field validation output and finally mapping on ArcGIS were the steps. Discrimination is significant, with kappa coefficients of 0.80; 0.83; 0.88 and 0.87. From 1986 to 2001, tree and shrub savannahs lost 49.24% and 33.56% of their area respectively. Between 2001 and 2017, the areas of open forests, forest plantations and grassy savannahs declined by 19.74%, 15.71% and 62.54% respectively. Between 2017 and 2021, gallery forests lost 13% of their area. However, from 1986 to 2001, there was an increase in areas of annual crops (181%), habitats (50.41%) and agroforestry parks (56.47%). From 2001 to 2017, housing increased by 99.31%, irrigated crops by 74% and annual crops by 63.71%. Between 2017 and 2021, annual crops increased by 406.07%. These results highlight the need to develop a sustainable management strategy for the watershed, given its enormous potential.

In Burkina Faso, protected areas have lost several hectares of their scope mainly due to the effect of anthropogenic pressure and climate change. In order to well understand this extreme degradation of vegetation, this study was initiated in Deux Bal