Land use/cover classification of West Africa based on multi-sensor earth observation data.

The regional land cover/use map for West Africa has a spatial resolution of 250 m. It is based on earth observation data from three optical and radar sensors. Annual time series of the optical Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) are used for discriminating semi-natural vegetation classes and agricultural classes. Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) Wide Swath (WS) time series, in combination with MODIS data, are used for delineating permanent and seasonal water bodies. Built-up areas of two density classes are mapped based on radar imagery collected by the satellites TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X. The accuracy assessment of the multi-sensor land cover map yields an overall accuracy of 80% at legend level 1 (9 classes) and 73% at the more detailed legend level 2 (14 classes).

For further details on the mapping approach and a discussion of strengths and limitations on the approach and dataset, we refer to the following publication:

Gessner, Ursula; Machwitz, Miriam; Esch, Thomas; Tillack, Adina; Naeimi, Vahid; Kuenzer, Claudia; Dech, Stefan (2015): Multi-sensor mapping of West African land cover using MODIS, ASAR and TanDEM-X/TerraSAR-X data. Remote Sensing of Environment, accepted.