Summary Results from:

Assessment of remotely sensed and statistical inventories of African agricultural fields
As they relate to the validation of MOD12

Authors: F. Hannerz, A. Lotsch

Source: International Journal of Remote Sensing, Volume 29, Issue 13 2008 , pages 3787-3804

Link to: Access Publication

Abstract:

This paper critically examines different sources of remotely sensed and statistical inventories of African agricultural fields. Substantial discrepancies are found across alternative sources of information in both the extent and location of agricultural fields. In one-third of the countries, the difference between lowest and highest field extent estimate exceeds 25% of the total country area, and the maximum difference at the continental level is 2.6 million km². Much of the disagreement between land-cover maps arises from areas of low cropping density. These inconsistencies have important implications when using these data directly, e.g. for the assessment of land cover changes, or indirectly in economic or physical models, and indicate a need to explicitly quantify uncertainties arising from the limitations in land-cover data. They also highlight the need for development of regional land information systems for baseline development and informed policy decisions.