The Africa Topographic Moisture Potential layer classifies the landscape of Africa as either upland or lowland (and other depressions) area. It was produced as part of the USGS’s Africa Ecosystems Map...
Smallholder farmers and pastoralists have restricted access to capital and may not have the capacity to invest in management practices that mitigate land degradation. This layer displays the areas of ...
The application of fertiliser is a key component in increasing agricultural production. However, there are thresholds beyond which the cost of inputs fails to lead to corresponding increases in yield....
Smallholder farmers have limited access to capital and are reluctant to trade their low-risk system (low input and low yield) to a high-risk system (high input and potentially higher yields). But Insu...
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...
Given the massive scale of livestock production systems, it is unlikely that any other single human activity has a larger environmental impact on the terrestrial land mass of the planet. As the world’...
The human imprint on the planet has a major impact on the functioning of the Earth system. Because the impact on the environment is closely intertwined with population dynamics, it is important to mon...
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...
According to UN estimates, the global population will increase by 2.4 billion between 2015 and 2050. Of this, an overwhelming 50 % will be concentrated in Africa (1.3 billion). There could be up to fo...
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...
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...
Priority areas are identified using local coefficients estimated through Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR), which measures the spatially varying relationship between access to electricity and f...
