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On regreening and degradation in Sahelian watersheds

2015; National Academy of Sciences; Volume: 112; Issue: 39 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1073/pnas.1509645112

1091-6490

Armel Kaptué, Lara Prihodko, Niall P. Hanan,

Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology

Significance For decades, the science and policy narrative relating to the West African Sahel has focused on perceptions of overgrazing and human-induced desertification. More recent reports of regional-scale recovery (“regreening”) following the severe droughts of the 1970s and 1980s are sometimes ignored. This study provides a satellite-based evaluation of changes in watershed-scale vegetation conditions in four regions of the Sahel from 1983–2012. Though the results support earlier reports of a “greening” trend, our approach identified strong regional differences in the extent and direction of change, and in the apparent role of woody and herbaceous components in driving the temporal trend.