Use of land cover products in West Africa; why and how to obtain standardisation and harmonisation of land cover classes Towards a Harmonised Land Cover for Africa in Support of Environmental Management Name: Tobias Landmann Professional title: Head, Geo-Information Unit icipe Event: AfriGEOSS Symposium 2016 Date, place: 28th of April, Victoria Falls
Background issues - harmonization Issues in WA Rainfall variability Natural resources and biodiversity declines Land Use and Land Cover changes at unprecedented rates Development applicability of LC/LU Balancing natural resources and food security through knowledge on land cover change drivers and consequences
Background issues - harmonization An array of wall-to-wall LC/LU data sets exist in WA, however, Different specific spectral and temporal characteristics Little integrative approaches (i.e. radar and optical) Little consistent regional products Feature specific, i.e. MERIS-based Climate Change Initiative water layer Sahel and dry savannah regions of Africa are mapped with the lowest spatial correspondence btw LC data sets
Inconsistencies – i.e. croplands GLCF, MODIS LC, GLC2000, Landscan Agreements indicate legend interoperability Number of times identified as ‘cropland’
Inconsistencies – btw products Comparing regional/integrative LC (West African LC) to several global LC products Gessner et al., 2015
Background issues - harmonization Users in WA rather use their standard legends to fit the need of their modeling community, e.g. Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) legend for climate modelers Likewise there are legends/maps created for carbon and hydrological modelers
Background issues - harmonization Basic legend elements not LCCS, firstly WRF standard important Not LCCS coding system from the start, legend according to WRF standard classes neede to extract climate parameters from Gessner et al., 2015, RSE
Background issues - harmonization Consequences of legend standards set by modeling community: Legend inconsistencies LCCS standard not widely adopted/utilized Nomenclature translatable (mostly) at certain hierarchical levels (slight adjustments, case by case)
User needs in WA Users want; Up-to-date LC with frequent updates Vegetation class characterization Consider temporal dynamics/seasonality ‘Critical seasons’ covered Transparent QA and interoperability More effective the next time we do LC mapping
Legends used in WA & compatibility
Conclusion Thus More communication to users on utility and how to translate legends (inter-operability) Preemptively consider climate and carbon, biodiversity and hydrology modeling communities More transparency on inconsistencies (QA)
Way forward Investigate interoperability areas and where improvements are feasible/ meaningful Perform feasibility study (AfriGeoss facilitated) on how current legends can be integrated to produce improved baseline LC Prioritize baseline classes Current legends as a starter Prefer integrative regional approaches/ products At aggregated level, the definition of a land cover “nomenclature” or “legend” for a class doesn’t seem to be a major difficulty.
Thank you!