Changes in vegetation and rainfall patterns in sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade observed by satellites - a national and sub-national synthesis

Abstract

The African Monitoring of the Environment for Sustainable Development (AMESD) programme, a common initiative of the European Commission (EC) and the African Union Commission, is intended to extend the operational use of Earth Observation technologies and data to environmental and climate monitoring applications. The Natural Resource Monitoring in Africa (NARMA) core information service of the EU project Geoland-2 (http://www.gmesgeoland.info/) provides technical support to AMESD in developing an environmental monitoring capacity over African countries for the needs of the EC services and for regional and continental EC partners in African countries. Recently, there is an increased need in environmental information for the implementation of environmental issues in international cooperation policy. To date, however, decision makers tend to use non-spatial indicators of environmental condition and human impact. Thus, there is a demand to develop new environmental indicators based on Earth Observation derived data and gain user acceptance for them.