West African Savanna Vegetation Trends from 1982-2013

WAVeTrends is a geospatial dataset mapping concurrent woody and herbaceous vegetation change across the West African Sudano-Sahel region. It provides pixel-wise categorical trends over a 32-year period (1982-2013) at 0.05-degree resolution, derived from rain use efficiency sensitivity analysis. The dataset, associated with ORNL_CLOUD, includes validity flags to indicate where the underlying rainfall-productivity assumption holds.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term woody vegetation change using per-pixel long-term rain use efficiency (RUE) sensitivity.
• Assessing short-term herbaceous vegetation trends via per-pixel ANCOVA of the RUE-precipitation slope.
• Mapping categorical vegetation change (increase/decrease) at a significance level of p<0.05 for land management planning.
• Identifying regions where the rainfall-driver assumption is invalid using the provided pixel validity flags.
• Studying the spatial correlation between woody and herbaceous cover dynamics over a multi-decadal period.

Strengths

• Provides a 32-year time series (1982-2013) for analyzing long-term ecological trends.
• Offers concurrent analysis of both woody and herbaceous vegetation change at a 5.55 km resolution.
• Includes methodological validity flags for each pixel, indicating reliability of the RUE-based assumption.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA EarthData and Data.gov signals established curation and importance.

Limitations

• Specific row count, file size, and column names are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date, reporting both 2013-12-31 and 2026-03 12.
• The analysis relies on the assumption that rainfall is a primary productivity driver, which is flagged as not always valid.

Provenance

Source

ORNL_CLOUD

Collection Method

Pixel-wise analysis using rain use efficiency (RUE) sensitivity, with woody change from mean RUE difference and herbaceous change from ANCOVA of RUE-precipitation slopes.

Time Range

1982-2013

Freshness

2026-03-12 19:54:56.707872

Geography

West African Sudano-Sahel region