Mapping Desertification in Southern Africa

Abstract

Land degradation over vast areas in tropical semi-arid regions, as a result of persistent drought and inappropriate land management, was brought to international public attention in the early 1980s following two catastrophic droughts in the African Sahel within a 10 year period. It was ultimately concluded that an interaction between climate and human land use was occurring at a sub-continental scale and that new techniques were needed to monitor and explain these processes.