Long-term phenology and variability of Southern Africa

Abstract

Satellite-derived phenology allows monitoring of terrestrial vegetation on a global scale and provides an integrative view at the landscape level. Understanding these seasonal phenological patterns is essential to (i) the characterisation and classification of vegetation, (ii) studying the impact of climate change, and influence of rainfall variability (iii) monitoring Satellite-derived phenology and (iv) detecting changes in land use/ land cover. This study analyzed vegetation phenology across southern Africa in order to investigate which phenometrics (and their inter-annual variability) distinguish biomes based on functional patterns. A second objective was to quantify the inter-annual variability of phenometrics during a 15-year period (1985 to 2000)