Comparison of Global and Regional Land Cover Maps with Statistical Information for the Agricultural Domain in Africa

Accurate information within the agricultural area domain is particularly important for crop monitoring for the purpose of food security. Several institutions monitoring crop status in food-insecure countries and in an early warning systems context are highly interested in crop distribution and crop extent maps. Also the inter-annual variations of crop areas are of high interest and very difficult to produce in highly fragmented rural landscapes as they are commonly found in many African countries. This paper will outline the comparison of four sources of land cover data to determine which product is the most suitable for agricultural monitoring and for the subsequent development of a crop mask, an important input to both food security and monitoring of agricultural expansion. Whereas in earlier papers a global comparison of land cover products was undertaken (Fritz and See, 2005; See and Fritz, 2005), this paper focuses on the agricultural domain in Africa.

FRITZ Steffen;  SEE Linda;  REMBOLD Felix; 

2010-05-20

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

JRC41827

0143-1161,   

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01431160902946598,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC41827,   

10.1080/01431160902946598,