ABSTRACT

The Gulf of Guinea and the Cameroonian coastline in particular are situated in a warm tropical environment with high potential, Data sciences and geospatial sciences have demonstrated their ability to improve our understanding of this system for its management as well as for future research. This environment and its surrounding ecosystems have undergone significant changes over the past 40 decades, and as part of our work we were talking about; Highlighting these changes and their amplors and their consequences, to evaluate the trends of the parameters studied (meteorology, hydrology, geology and fisheries), And then to highlight the gaps of oceanographic research at the level of our zone. Our work indicates that only 24% of the areas, flows and river widths in our study area are known, indicating a lack of knowledge of approximately 76% for estimates made by Gaia geoscience models. The total or partial lack of field estimates of surface area, flow rate and stream width indicate that approximately 100% of knowledge is lacking. With regard to marine geology in our study area, we have noted significant soil losses in the Rio Del Rey basins to the southwest and at the Douala level in the coastal region where negative changes of -22% and -24% for the majority land classes - minority waters indicating significant losses. The positive values are observed for the majority and minority land-water classes, which are 17% and 37% respectively. In the southern region, negative values of -9%, - 18% and -21% were observed for classes; Water, Majority-Minority Land and Majority-Minority lands respectively the only positive value is that of the Earth class is 50% with increased sedimentation of its oceanic waters. We found out from the absence of suspended sediments in the sedimentary basins of the Rio Del Rey and Douala that it had an ongoing subsidence phenomenon because of the increase over time in flood areas and so on. The interest of this work is that it has enabled us to develop a research agenda, the consideration of which will allow structured and sustainable management of this environment allowing it to put its full potential at the service of the States and the riparian populations economic and socio-political plans while preserving it. It also allowed us to find ways to mitigate certain risks associated with this coastal environment.

Keywords: Status, Trends, Gaps, Oceanography, GIS and remote sensing, Gulf of Guinea

MEMOIRE_BIKIE_GERALD_ANICET_FINAL.pdf

Author: BIKIE Gerald Anicet

Title: Status Trends and Gaps of Oceanography in the Gulf of Guinea " A case study on Cameroon's Coastal region"

Email: geraldanicetbikie@gmail.com

Research Supervisors:

Dr Alexander Samuel Kolker

LUMCON

Pr Ilias Kacimi

CRASTE-LF

Affiliate Institutions:

-The African Regional Center For Space Sciences and Technology Education in The French Language Affiliated to the United Nations Organisation (CRASTE-LF)/Ecole Mohamedia d'Ingenieur. Sis EMI Agdal Rabat Morocco

-Mohamed V University /Faculty of Sciences Rabat. Sis 4 Avenue Ibn Batouta Rabat morocco

-The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium