Monitoring 25 years of land cover change dynamics in Africa: A sample based remote sensing approach

The study examines the changes in sub-Saharan¿s natural land cover resources for a 25 year period. We assess these changes in four broad land cover classes ¿ forests, natural non-forest vegetation, agriculture and barren ¿ by using high spatial resolution Earth observing satellites. Two sets of sample images, one ¿historical¿ targeted at 1975 and a second ¿recent¿ targeted at the year 2000, have been selected through a stratified random sampling technique over the study area, targeting a sampling rate of 1% in each of the strata. The results, presented at eco-region level and aggregated at sub-Saharan level, show a 57% increase in agriculture area at the expense of natural vegetation which has itself decreased by 21% over the period, with nearly 5 million hectares forest and non-forest natural vegetation lost per year. The impacts of these changes on the environment on one site and on the socio-economy on the other site are discussed and possible pressures on human well being are highlighted.

BRINK Andreas;  EVA Hugh; 

2009-10-09

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

JRC41874

0143-6228,   

http://www.elsevier.com/locate/apgeog,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC41874,   

10.1016/j.apgeog.2008.10.004,