Annual rate of agriculture expansion in West African countries (1975–2013 average)

West Africa is composed of a wide variety of ecosystems and an equally high number of food production systems. Agriculture is the basic driver of West Africa’s economy, on which the majority of people depend for their livelihood (Gyasi and Uitto, 1997). Most farms are small, typically 1 to 5 hectares. Although the small size of farms reflects a scarcity of land in heavily populated areas as in...

Landscapes of West Africa: A Window on a Changing World is an atlas and unique dataset that uses time-series satellite image data and field-based photography to tell the story of wide-ranging land change across 17 countries. EROS scientists selected the years 1975, 2000 and 2013 to characterize the landscapes and create the product, which represents the broadest effort to map the region in history...