Environmental monitoring of tropical wetlands in semi-arid Sub-Saharan Africa - what about remote sensing?

Heterogeneous socio-ecological and socio-economic interrelations of local, regional and continental phenomena determine the ecological balance of semi-arid regions in Sub_Saharan Africa. Multitemporal monitoring for change detection and analysis of regional patterns of degradation is one of the main steps to understand processes of degradation and desertification. Operationalized earth observation by medium-to-high-resolution spaceborne remote sensing is the tool for monitoring dynamics of land cover change in order to support regional planning for sustainable development. Neither existing satellite platforms and sensor systems nor the management of data acquisition and distribution for the users in Sub-Saharan countries meet the requirements determined by the key-words low-cost, non-profit, decentralized, appropriate. There is urgent need for establishing a sustainable programme of earth observation of Sub-Saharan regions based on free of charge data with medium-to-high spatial and spectral resolutions.