An efficient water concept for monitoring vegetation in West Africa

The aim of this paper is to propose an approach which describes and explains the phenology of vegetation at the scale of West Africa. The method presented is based upon the estimation of water balance. The latter is done by the computation of radiation budget which allows the authors to evaluate the actual evapotranspiration (AET). The method also enabled the parametrization of the soil water contained in a superficial tank which is conditioned by the principal properties of soils. About the potential availability of soil water content, a reaction model of vegetation is suggested