PROMISE

Progress report April 2001 - Sept 2001.

Dr. Caroline Sullivan CEH Wallingford (for Chris Taylor)

The NERC contribution to WP2100

During this period, we have managed to complete the collation of data relating to land use and deforestation over West Africa, from a number of different sources.  We have collected data from the FAO, UNEP, the World Bank, The World Resources Institute and from Remotely sensed data from AVHRR (Advanced Very High-Resolution Radiometer) data covering April 1992 to March 1993, obtained from NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS).

To avoid undue complexity, in each of these datasets, we have sorted the 16 IGBP land cover types into three sections: forest cover, pastoral and crop lands. On this basis, we have identified the area of each land cover type in each national area, both in terms of actual Km2 and also as a percentage of the total national area. We have, where possible, collected data for both 1960 and 1990.  We have also begun a survey of an expert panel to determine approximate values for the percentages of vegetative cover and bare soil for these three gross land cover types.

On the basis of this data, we are now working towards completing estimates of past and present land cover in West Africa from these varying sources, and each of these estimates will be used as the basis of alternative land use scenarios.  Projections of future land use changes resulting from various macroeconomic variables will be developed from these, and these will then be used to feed into the meteorological and hydrological components of our work, which is ongoing.