A Review: Potential of Earth Observation (EO) for Mapping Small-Scale Agriculture and Cropping Systems in West Africa

Niklas Heiss (), Jonas Meier, Ursula Gessner and Claudia Kuenzer
Additional contact information
Niklas Heiss: German Remote Sensing Data Center, Earth Observation Center, EOC of the German Aerospace Center, DLR, 82234 Weßling, Germany
Jonas Meier: German Remote Sensing Data Center, Earth Observation Center, EOC of the German Aerospace Center, DLR, 82234 Weßling, Germany
Ursula Gessner: German Remote Sensing Data Center, Earth Observation Center, EOC of the German Aerospace Center, DLR, 82234 Weßling, Germany
Claudia Kuenzer: German Remote Sensing Data Center, Earth Observation Center, EOC of the German Aerospace Center, DLR, 82234 Weßling, Germany

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-47

Abstract: West Africa faces a complex range of challenges arising from climatic, social, economic, and ecological factors, which pose significant risks. The rapidly growing population, coupled with persistently low agricultural yield, further exacerbates these risks. A state-of-the-art monitoring and data derivation of agricultural systems are crucial for improving livelihoods and enhancing food security. Despite smallholder farming systems accounting for 80% of cultivated cropland area and providing about 42% of the total employment in West Africa, there exists a lack of a comprehensive overview of Remote Sensing (RS) products and studies specifically tailored to smallholder farming systems, which this review aims to address. Through a systematic literature review comprising 163 SCI papers sourced from the Web of Science database (Filter I), followed by a full-text review (Filter II), we analyze the RS sensors, spatiotemporal distribution, temporal scales, the crop types examined, and thematic foci employed in existing research. Our findings highlight the predominance of high to very high-resolution, multispectral sensors as the primary data source and we observe that a wide array of available sensors and datasets, along with increasing computing capacities, have shaped the field over the last years. By highlighting existing knowledge, this study identifies the potential of RS and pinpoints the key research gaps. This sets the stage for future investigations aimed at addressing critical challenges in West African smallholder agricultural systems.

Keywords: Africa; West Africa; review; remote sensing; earth observation; agriculture; farming; food security; monitoring; sustainable intensification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/1/171/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/1/171/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:1:p:171-:d:1567650

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().