Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, 2016, 4, 13-33 http://www.scirp.org/journal/gep ISSN Online: 2327-4344 ISSN Print: 2327-4336 DOI: 10.4236/gep.2016.411003 November 4, 2016 Monitoring Forest Cover Change and Fragmentation Using Remote Sensing and Landscape Metrics in Nyungwe-Kibira Park Alphonse Kayiranga 1,2,3 , Alishir Kurban 1,2* , Felix Ndayisaba 1,2,3 , Lamek Nahayo 1,2,3 , Fidele Karamage 1,2,3 , Abdimijit Ablekim 1,2 , Haiwen Li 1,2 , Osman Ilniyaz 1,2 1 State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, China 2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing, China 3 University of Lay Adventists of Kigali (UNILAK), Kigali, Rwanda Abstract The objective of this study was to evaluate forest cover change and forest degradation in Nyungwe-Kibira Park, a natural reserve straddling Rwanda and Burundi from 1986 to 2015. Landsat TM, ETM+ and 8OLI images of 30 m spatial resolution were used as primary datasets. Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques were used for forest cover mapping and landscape metrics were calculated by using FRAGSTATS software. Classification and change analysis of forest cover type and landscape patterns analysis were carried out. In addition, to analyze the correlated external disturbances, the buffer zone of 5 Km was delineated outside the boundary of Nyungwe-Kibira Park. The results revealed that in among 5 land cover classes considered within the Park, the dominant one was dense forest class covering over 70% of the entire Park area while in the buffer zone cultivated and open land domi- nated at over 90% between the years 1986 and 2015. Change detection highlighted that within Nyungwe-Kibira forest, approximately 0.27% (4.97 Km 2 ) of forest cover was cleared while 0.07% (1.22 Km 2 ) was regenerated annually. In the buffer zone, the annual cleared forest cover was about 0.76% (13.02 Km 2 ). The five landscape indices chosen at class level indicated a considerable fragmentation of forest inside the Park and the highest fragmentation in the buffer zone. Indeed, these results shed a bleak image over the future of the Nyungwe-Kibira forest that should be helpful for the policy-makers and managers of these natural parks to establish adequate policies to mitigate the forest loss and degradation by implementing quick and effective solu- tions. How to cite this paper: Kayiranga, A., Kur- ban, A., Ndayisaba, F., Nahayo, L., Kara- mage, F., Ablekim, A., Li, H.W. and Ilniyaz, O. (2016) Monitoring Forest Cover Change and Fragmentation Using Remote Sensing and Landscape Metrics in Nyungwe-Kibira Park. Journal of Geoscience and Environ- ment Protection, 4, 13-33. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/gep.2016.411003 Received: September 30, 2016 Accepted: November 1, 2016 Published: November 4, 2016 Copyright © 2016 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access