More people equal more trees in semi-arid West Africa - Our new study published in Nature Geoscience questions ‘received wisdom’ as concerns the relationship between human agency and woody vegetation of West Africa. We demonstrate that in low-rainfall areas woody cover is denser in cultivated areas than in savannas, and close to settlements rather that … Continue reading Tree cover promoted in semi-arid Sahelian farms – new publication in Nature Geoscience
Our new study uses unprecedented data sources to measure vegetation carbon stock dynamics at continental scale. The study demonstrates that over the African continent, the net carbon balance is negative for 2010-2016, and that most of the carbon losses occurred in dryland savannahs. The results were published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. The … Continue reading A new tool to monitor aboveground vegetation carbon stocks: first application to the African continent
Our fantastic team had some new publications within the past half year, they are all worth to have a look: Xiaoye Tong, Martin Brandt, Pierre Hiernaux, Stefanie Herrmann, Feng Tian, Alexander Prishchepov, Rasmus Fensholt. Revisiting the coupling between NDVI trends and cropland changes in the Sahel drylands: A case study in western Niger. Remote Sensing … Continue reading New publications!
Diouf, A.A.; Hiernaux, P.; Brandt, M.; Faye, G.; Djaby, B.; Diop, M.B.; Ndione, J.A.; Tychon, B. Do Agrometeorological Data Improve Optical Satellite-Based Estimations of the Herbaceous Yield in Sahelian Semi-Arid Ecosystems? Remote Sens. 2016, 8, 668. Quantitative estimates of forage availability at the end of the growing season in rangelands are helpful for pastoral livestock … Continue reading Integrating meteorological data in biomass prediction models
Our new paper looks at recent dynamics in woody vegetation in Sahel and finds some interesting patterns which are mainly controlled by human population density. Martin Brandt, Pierre Hiernaux, Kjeld Rasmussen, Cheikh Mbow, Laurent Kergoat, Torbern Tagesson, Yahaya Ibrahim, Abdoulaye Wele, Compton J. Tucker, Rasmus Fensholt. Assessing woody vegetation trends in Sahelian drylands using MODIS … Continue reading Recent woody vegetation trends in Sahel
Our latest article is not located in the Sahel, however, the method to assess the future persistence of vegetation trends is highly interesting in the context of ecosystem stability and resistance. The article is open access and freely available. Tong, Xiaowei; Wang, Kelin; Brandt, Martin; Yue, Yuemin; Liao, Chujie; Fensholt, Rasmus. 2016. "Assessing Future Vegetation … Continue reading Assessing Future Vegetation Trends and Restoration Prospects in the Karst Regions of Southwest China
Tian, F.; Brandt, M.; Liu, Y. Y.; Verger, A.; Tagesson, T.; Diouf, A. A.; Rasmussen, K.; Mbow, C.; Wang, Y.; Fensholt, R. Remote sensing of vegetation dynamics in drylands: Evaluating vegetation optical depth (VOD) using AVHRR NDVI and in situ green biomass data over West African Sahel. Remote Sensing of Environment 2016, 177, 265–276. … Continue reading Remote sensing of vegetation in drylands: Evaluating vegetation optical depth (VOD) using NDVI and in situ data over Sahel
We had three presentations at this years AGU fall meeting in San Francisco. Find the posters and presentations as PDFs here (the copyright is with the authors): Feng Tian, Martin Brandt, Yi Liu, Rasmus Fensholt. Remote sensing of biomass dynamics in drylands: Evaluating vegetation optical depth (VOD) using AVHRR NDVI and in situ data. AGU … Continue reading AGU 2015
Brandt, M., Hiernaux, P., Tagesson, T., Verger, A., Rasmussen, K., Diouf, A.A., Mbow, C., Mougin, E., Fensholt, R., 2016. Woody plant cover estimation in drylands from Earth Observation based seasonal metrics. Remote Sensing of Environment 172, 28–38. Download a free copy here (until 28 December 2015) . Trees, shrubs and bushes are an important element … Continue reading Woody plant cover estimation in drylands from Earth Observation based seasonal metrics
Together with my colleagues Rasmus Fensholt, Stephanie Horion and Torbern Tagesson we edit a special issue for the open access journal Remote Sensing and we want to encourage everyone working with remote sensing and land degradation to submit a well prepared manuscript. The submission deadline is 31 May 2016. Find below the introduction text from … Continue reading Special Issue: Remote Sensing of Land Degradation and Drivers of Change
Sahel studies 