Land Tenure and Land Use Dynamics in Limbe City, South West Region of Cameroon

This study seeks to verify the dynamics of land tenure and land use systems as well as analyse the problems associated to land use dynamics and suggest solutions. The data for this analysis is based on a detailed review of archival materials, a reconnaissance survey and the administration of 300 questionnaires to residents (250) and organizations (5). The analysis of the data was performed in excel in which frequencies and percentages were calculated. The arc GIS software was also used to produce land use maps for the study area. The results show that, urbanization and population growth are the main causes of rapid land use dynamics in the study area. Also, between 1970, 1990 and 2011, residential, agricultural, social amenities and industrial land uses have increased while during this same period, area covered by forests has reduced from 32, 27 to 20km2. However, as of 2011, forest still occupied a larger proportion of the study area (20km2) while residential (19km2), agricultural (18km2), social amenities (7km2), industrial (4km2).