MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT OF FRACTIONAL WOODY VEGETATION COVER CHANGE IN A SOUTHERN AFRICAN SAVANNAH REGION

Speaker: Elias Symeonakis, Manchester Metropolitan University, United KingdomThere is increasing concern over the sustainability of savannahs, with global reports of woody vegetation encroaching on grasslands. This shift, driven by factors such as CO2 enrichment, nitrogen deposition, altered fire regimes, and grazing pressure, threatens rangeland productivity, biodiversity, and the livelihoods of millions of African pastoralists, often resulting in poverty and famine. Monitoring woody vegetation is critical for identifying areas where land degradation mitigation is needed, as highlighted by the UNCCD. However, savannahs present unique challenges for monitoring due to their discontinuous land cover, making them under-represented in global land cover products and carbon accounting systems.