Fire is a natural part of all ecosystems. Wildfires have been burning vegetation and shaping landscapes far longer than people have been on Earth. However, changes in fire frequency and timing can res...
Changes in vegetation biomass are critical in assessing land degradation. Climate variations, alone or in combination with human-induced land use and land change, can affect biomass productivity and m...
Water is a critical natural resource for both natural ecosystems and human subsistence. Some of the most immediate pressures on land that lead to degradation include diversion of surface waters and th...
Humans need increasingly more biomass for food, fodder, fibre and energy. Meeting these demands changes global ecosystems. Tracking changes in total biomass production or land productivity is an essen...
Some extraordinary changes have occurred across the globe over the past decades regarding human habitation. Globally, between 1975 and 2015 built-up areas increased by approximately 250 %, while popul...
Aridity represents the ‘dryness’ of the climate. Dry areas have a higher potential for land degradation. This layer displays the areas of concern for aridity related issues derived from the convergenc...
Irrigation enables farmers to increase crop production by reducing their dependence on natural rainfall. It is considered a vital part of ensuring food security in the future. Yet it also causes exten...
The CO2 fixed by photosynthesis is one of the most important components of the carbon cycle. Forests play a key role in this process. They represent large and persistent carbon sinks. Tree carbon stoc...
Roots are a long term and stable carbon sink, accounting for about 0.4 of the above ground biomass across biogeographical regions. Well established and developed root systems provide various ecosystem...
Park managers in many countries across Africa need to monitor and understand their parks features and overall health. They can rely on the highly detailed land cover information offered by the Coperni...
Copernicus is the European flagship programme for monitoring the Earth. Data is collected by Earth observation satellites and sensors on the earth’s surface. The Copernicus Land Monitoring Service pro...
Droughts affect millions of people in the world each year and have long-lasting socioeconomic impacts. They can occur over most parts of the world, even in wet and humid regions, and can profoundly im...
Increasing water scarcity and water quality issues are serious constraints, especially for Northern Africa. A comprehensive assessment of spatial and temporal precipitation frequency is the initial st...
Droughts affect millions of people in the world each year and have long-lasting socioeconomic impacts. They can occur over most parts of the world, even in wet and humid regions, and can profoundly im...
Chlorophyll-a concentrations (Chla) are an indicator of phytoplankton abundance and biomass in open waters. They can be an effective measure of trophic status and are commonly used to measure water qu...
