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Summary:
Preliminary findings from an investigation of land use and land cover contrasts along the Haitian/Dominican Republic border are presented. Geographic visualization using Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite imagery, digital elevation models, and geographic information system data are combined with field reconnaissance to describe broad-scale land use and land cover patterns along the border and give insights into their relationships to variables in the physical and socio-economic environment. Visual interpretation of satellite imagery reveals that land use and land cover contrasts between the two nations are discernible along most of their shared international border. Contrasts in higher elevations are a result of more extensive deforestation in Haiti compared to the less disturbed montane forests on the Dominican side. Cross-border contrasts in inter-montane valleys and coastal lowlands are characterised by larger field sizes, more irrigated land, and more extensive agriculture in the Dominican Republic contrasting with the small plot agriculture on the Haitian side of the frontier. Questions raised by these preliminary results are introduced and the objectives of future research in the Haitian/Dominican Republic border region are presented.
Key Words:
POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY REMOTE SENSING HAITI DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Introduction
International border regions can be interesting settings to examine land cover patterns and their temporal dynamics. Conditions in the natural environment such as soils, geology, climate, and potential natural vegetation are often the same on opposite sides of a political border, so that cross-border contrasts in land use and land cover potentially may be traced to differences in the political, economic, and cultural utilisation of the landscape. Spaceborne remote sensing instruments have captured examples of cross-border land use and land cover contrasts at several locations around the globe. For example, Sheffield (1981) presents satellite imagery of stark land cover boundaries for portions of the borders separating Mexico and the United States, Canada and the United States, and Israel and Egypt. Another example of cross-border land use and land cover contrast can be found along the frontier separating the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. An oblique aerial photograph that appeared in a 1987 issue of National Geographic captured the land cover contrast found along a portion of this border, depicting the heavily forested Dominican side in stark contrast to...