1. 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 Date, place: 28th of April, Victoria Falls

2. Background issues - harmonization
Issues in WA
Rainfall variability
Natural resources ƒand biodiversity declines
ƒƒLand 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

3. 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

4. Inconsistencies – i.e. croplands
GLCF, MODIS LC, GLC2000, Landscan
Agreements indicate legend interoperability
Number of times identified as ‘cropland’

5. Inconsistencies – btw products
Comparing regional/integrative LC (West African LC) to several global LC products
Gessner et al., 2015

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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)

9. 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

10. Legends used in WA & compatibility

11. 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)

12. 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.

13. Thank you!