Long-Term Phenology and Variability of Southern African Vegetation

Satellite-derived phenology allows monitoring of terrestrial vegetation on a global scale and provides an integrative view at the landscape level . Understanding these seasonal phenological patterns is essential to (i) the characterisation and classification of vegetation, (ii) studying the impact of climate change , and influence of rainfall variability (iii) monitoring desertification and (iv) detecting changes in land use/land cover. This study analyzed vegetation phenology across Southern Africa in order to investigate which phenometrics (and their inter-annual variability) distinguish biomes based on functional patterns. A second objective was to quantify the inter-annual variability of phenometrics during a 15-year period (1985 to 2000).