REAL-TIME VEGETATION MONITORING WITH NOAA-AVHRR IN SOUTHERN AFRICA FOR WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AND FOOD SECURITY ASSESSMENT

The monitoring of vegetation in Southern Africa with satellite data ha s become increasingly important over the past decade because it is lin ked to variation in agricultural production and climate change with im plications for wildlife management and tourism. This study shows how m aps of vegetation status were produced in near real time from NOAA ima ges acquired from the local receiving stations in Etosha National Park , Namibia and in Zambia. Map products based on the NDVI were put into historical context and stratified to remove effects of the main vegeta tion types in order to assess vegetation status. The historical data w ere extracted from the FAO ARTEMIS NDVI archive and processed to obtai n a statistical distribution of the NDVI for each 10-day period of the year and vegetation type by applying techniques commonly used in hydr ology for the prediction of extreme events. The quintile probability r anges were used to define five classes of a Vegetation Productivity In dicator (VPI). LAC NDVI images obtained in real-time from the receivin g station were processed to derive a VPI map for each 10-day period. I n Etosha National Park and in Zambia, the VPI was strongly related to the rainfall and the VPI maps provided improved information on the spa tial variations. The weighted average VPI for the main agricultural re gion of Zambia was significantly correlated with maize production.