Remote sensing of water use and water stress in the African savanna ecosystem at local scale – development and validation of a monitoring tool

The aim of this paper is to outline, apply and validate a novel tool to account for water use and water stress in African savannas at fine scale, using Earth Observation data (low to high spatial resolution sensors), to provide accurate and timely information for supporting decision making at different scales. The improvement of range land management can increase savanna productivity and resilience, allowing the population depending on these ecosystems to adapt progressively to climate change,and helping to ensure food security by diversifying the current agricultural sector.

In South Africa, where this work was conducted, savannas cover about a third of the land area, providing two vital services: wildlife-related tourism and cattle ranching. It is estimated that around 9.2 million of South Africans benefit directly from these ecosystem services, through the use of savanna resources.