V. Gond et al., AFRICAN BIOMES DYNAMIC BY REMOTE-SENSING TEMPORAL ANALYSIS, Comptes rendus de l'Academie des sciences. Serie 3, Sciences de la vie, 320(2), 1997, pp. 179-188
Monitoring the evolution of large surface of the earth is one of the m
ain applications of remote sensing science. It is also one of the main
preoccupations of many scientific, economic and political communities
. The analysis presented in this paper concerns the whole African cont
inent. It is performed on bulk composite data from the NOAA-AVHRR sens
or, which needed adapted corrections and smoothing processes. The spat
ial distribution of the major biomes has been mapped, according to the
ir own phenology. Seldom detected, the ecosystem's annual biological r
hythms instantly give information about the spatial and temporal behav
iours of the surface. Only the use of remotely sensed data allows us t
o avoid problems of mixing heterogeneous information (especially clima
tic data). The spatial and temporal data combined through a clustering
model allow analysis of the phenological behaviour of the terrestrial
surface nt smalt scale.