**1. Introduction**

Human impact on the natural landscape has been increasing since the advent of sedentarization coupled with the emergence of agriculture [1,2]. The creation and extension of cities resulting from rural exodus and natural demographic growth are among the phenomena that have amplified the human impact on natural environments in recent decades [3–6]. Indeed, in 1850 the proportion of the world's population living in urban areas was 6% [7] compared to 55% in 2020; that proportion is projected to reach 70% by 2050 [8].

**Citation:** Salomon, W.; Useni Sikuzani, Y.; Sambieni, K.R.; Kouakou, A.T.M.; Barima, Y.S.S.; Théodat, J.M.; Bogaert, J. Land Cover Dynamics along the Urban–Rural Gradient of the Port-au-Prince Agglomeration (Republic of Haiti) from 1986 to 2021. *Land* **2022**, *11*, 355. https://doi.org/10.3390/ land11030355

Academic Editors: Sara Venafra, Carmine Serio and Guido Masiello

Received: 24 January 2022 Accepted: 19 February 2022 Published: 27 February 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

In addition to the densification of existing built-up areas, many cities are experiencing reverse migration leading to low-density sprawl on land reserves at the urban–rural interface, an area known as the "peri-urban" zone [5,9–11]. In developing countries, the dynamics of peri-urban zones are characterized by spontaneous and/or anarchic urbanization [12], which constitutes a challenge for urban and landscape planners [6,12]. Thus, many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have recorded a rapid spatial expansion of urban areas, for example, an urbanization rate of 76.2% in Trinidad has been noted [13]. Mexico City, in Mexico, experienced an annual spatial growth of 0.9% between 2000 and 2010 [14,15]. The Port-au-Prince agglomeration in the Republic of Haiti is no exception to this rule [16].

The uncontrolled peri-urbanization of the Port-au-Prince agglomeration (the capital of Haiti) is the result of changing lifestyles and ineffective land governance, all of which is prompted by galloping and uncontrolled urban population growth. Indeed, from 1982 to 2018, the area's population increased five-fold from approximately 720,000 to 4,000,000 inhabitants [17,18], and is forecasted to house more than five million inhabitants by 2030 [19]. The resulting spatial urban expansion leads to an intensified consumption of agricultural land and pressure on woody vegetation, especially for charcoal production and for the extraction of building materials, etc. [16,20]. Consequently, the green spaces in the Port-au-Prince agglomeration are rapidly disappearing. This, despite their performance as a valuable ecosystem service, which includes moderation of the urban heat island effect, cleansing of air and water, conservation of biodiversity, provision of recreational opportunities, and improvement of physical and psychological well-being for citizens.

However, due to a deficit of over 2.4 million quality housing units in the urban zone of Port-au-Prince [18], about 65% of its population has been relegated to precarious and informal neighborhoods in the peri-urban zone, where access to basic services remains insufficient [16,21]. It should be noted that this situation is also visible in several cities in Latin America and the Caribbean where economic restructuring induced by the process of peri-urbanization has led to significant disparities in development between different neighborhoods [15]. In addition, the growth of the Haitian capital "Port-au-Prince" is also to the detriment of the capital cities, departments, and districts at the country level. Indeed, the centralization of public expenditure and the concentration of the majority of the country's employment in Port-au-Prince favors a steadily increasing rural exodus. Consequently, the population seeks to ensure its housing in a difficult economic context and the absence of territorial development planning, with little concern for the sustainability of resources [16]. This situation is often exacerbated by natural disasters (earthquakes, cyclones, etc.) which lead to changes in the landscape followed by massive displacement of the population towards the capital Haiti. The population allows itself to create new unplanned urban spots wherever space is available [15,16]. This is notably the case regarding the informal district of Canaan, which was created after the 2010 earthquake to house the affected population [16,22].

If the trend continues at the current rate, in which each year more than 10,000 households spontaneously settle in peri-urban zones [16,18], the prosperity of the population could be compromised for many decades to come. It should be noted that most of the spontaneous growth of the peri-urban zones in Port-au-Prince reflects the overall poverty of Haitian society, where 80% of residents subsist on less than USD 1.50 per day [16]. In addition, urban governance in Port-au-Prince is challenged by the growing need for infrastructure provision and land managemen<sup>t</sup> [21] in an urban core where land for building is becoming increasingly scarce and expensive [18].

Despite this alarming situation, research into quantifying the urban and peri-urban expansion of the Port-au-Prince agglomeration and assessments of the associated ecological consequences still remain limited, including in other Caribbean cities [20]. However, numerous studies establish the importance of understanding the local influence of urban expansion and the various associated anthropogenic activities on landscape dynamics [23] to assess the nature and basis of these changes from the perspective of rational natural

resource management. Given that the urban–rural opposition is completed by accounting for an intermediate zone between both namely, the peri-urban zone [24], it was appropriate for the present study to separately assess the land cover dynamics in the urban, peri-urban, and rural zones of the Port-au-Prince agglomeration. For this reason, the urban–rural gradient approach [6,11,23] was employed.

Accordingly, we characterize the land cover dynamics along the urban–rural gradient of the Port-au-Prince agglomeration in the Republic of Haiti. We hypothesized that the rapid and uncontrolled spatial expansion of the built-up area in urban and peri-urban zones, coupled with the development of shifting agriculture in the rural zone, has led to a landscape dynamic. This dynamic has been marked by the fragmentation and spatial isolation of woody vegetation patches, the extent of which increases in the peri-urban zone of the Port-au-Prince agglomeration
