As human populations continue to grow rapidly, natural resources are becoming increasingly scarce, either being depleted or exhausted. Forests are a natural resource that provides goods and services essential for human welfare. Despite their importance to mankind, they are highly prone to fragmentation and destruction due to human impact, causing a great threat to water resources. This study aimed at evaluating changing trends in Land-use Land-cover (LULC) and its implications on water resources of the Western highlands of Cameroon over a 36-year period. Spatio-temporal dynamics of the landscapes were studied from the diachronic analysis of four Landsat scenes: Landsat TM of 1984, Landsat ETM+ 2001 and 2010, and Landsat 8 for 2020, complemented by verification missions and socio-economic surveys on the field. The satellite images were processed using ArcGIS and ERDAS Imagine？ software. The results revealed that between 1984 to 2020 the extension of agricultural land (from 8752 ha to 24425 ha), built-up areas (from 2502 to 8965ha), degraded forest (from 9000 ha to 20016 ha), Savannah (from 37258 ha to 49898 ha) and bare soils (from 71 ha to 342 ha) could have accounted for the disappearance of much of the dense, montane and gallery forest area and water bodies which within the period recorded losses of ？26455ha, ？6113 ha, ？10972 ha and 3660 ha respectively. Results from surveys revealed that farming (50.7) and collection of fuel wood and NTFPs (28.4) were the main activities carried out around forests, which resulted in the degradation of forests in general and gallery forest in particular. The reduction in the area of water bodies owing to land use and climate change probably accounted for the reduction in surface area and water volume of the Bamendjin reservoir, a proxy for available water resources of the area. Therefore, the need for service and fuel wood, agricultural land to ensure food security, and settlements to accommodate the increasing population is at the heart of the multifaceted pressures on forests, land cover change, and water resources. The rapid population growth of the Western highlands of Cameroon could have accounted for these pressures. There is an urgent need to implement an appropriate land use policy in this area.
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