• myGriffith
    • Staff portal
    • Contact Us⌄
      • Future student enquiries 1800 677 728
      • Current student enquiries 1800 154 055
      • International enquiries +61 7 3735 6425
      • General enquiries 07 3735 7111
      • Online enquiries
      • Staff phonebook
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Journal articles
    • View Item
    • Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Journal articles
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

  • All of Griffith Research Online
    • Communities & Collections
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • This Collection
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • Statistics

  • Most Popular Items
  • Statistics by Country
  • Most Popular Authors
  • Support

  • Contact us
  • FAQs
  • Admin login

  • Login
  • Hydrological controls on surface vegetation dynamics over West and Central Africa

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Ndehedehe217573.pdf (1.372Mb)
    Author(s)
    Ndehedehe, Christopher E
    Ferreira, Vagner G
    Agutu, Nathan O
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Ndehedehe, Christopher E.
    Year published
    2019
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    A considerable number of independent case studies have shown the explicit role of rainfall and soil moisture as drivers of surface vegetation dynamics. However, the weak relationship exhibited by rainfall and soil moisture with vegetation productivity in some semi-arid and humid ecosystems of Africa due to a complex combination of social and environmental factors warrants further assessment of hydrological controls on surface vegetation changes. In this study, hydrological control on surface vegetation in West and Central Africa (WCA) using monthly Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) (2002–2013) as a vegetation ...
    View more >
    A considerable number of independent case studies have shown the explicit role of rainfall and soil moisture as drivers of surface vegetation dynamics. However, the weak relationship exhibited by rainfall and soil moisture with vegetation productivity in some semi-arid and humid ecosystems of Africa due to a complex combination of social and environmental factors warrants further assessment of hydrological controls on surface vegetation changes. In this study, hydrological control on surface vegetation in West and Central Africa (WCA) using monthly Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) (2002–2013) as a vegetation proxy, is explored by using terrestrial water storage (TWS) inverted from time-variable satellite gravity observations. Statistical relationships indicated that the temporal patterns of NDVI with TWS over West Africa, and in catchment-specific cases, were generally slightly stronger than the widely reported association between rainfall and NDVI. The strongest temporal association between TWS and NDVI was found in Lake Chad basin (R 2 =69% at α=0.05) and southern Mali (R 2 =62% at α=0.05). However, when the spatial relations of TWS-NDVI and rainfall-NDVI were evaluated (monthly and seasonal scales), rainfall showed a considerable and wider spread of significant association (α=0.05) with surface vegetation greenness compared to TWS. But some locations in the semi-arid Sahel exist where spatial relationships between NDVI and TWS were relatively higher and consistent as opposed to the rainfall-NDVI relationship. A contemporary understanding of the water driven variability in surface vegetation in WCA indicates that (i) the preponderance of observed positive correlations of NDVI with TWS and rainfall are predominantly found in the Sudano-Sahelian ecosystems, where total NDVI variability is apparently the highest (51.4%) and (ii) some of the Sahelian vegetation also show considerable and significant association with model-derived groundwater. As a strong hydrological indicator in rain-fed semi-arid catchments of West Africa, TWS can be employed as a resourceful tool to provide early warning systems and improve the monitoring of climate impacts on groundwater dependent vegetation communities.
    View less >
    Journal Title
    Ecological Indicators
    Volume
    103
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.04.032
    Copyright Statement
    © 2019 Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is properly cited.
    Subject
    Chemical sciences
    Environmental sciences
    Biological sciences
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/384513
    Collection
    • Journal articles

    Footer

    Disclaimer

    • Privacy policy
    • Copyright matters
    • CRICOS Provider - 00233E
    • TEQSA: PRV12076

    Tagline

    • Gold Coast
    • Logan
    • Brisbane - Queensland, Australia
    First Peoples of Australia
    • Aboriginal
    • Torres Strait Islander