Applied Remote Sensing: Land Use in Sub-Saharan Africa

Satellite images are indispensable for mapping forest cover, agriculture, and other land uses. Off-the-shelf image processing approaches struggle to capture features in complex landscapes: for example, fine-scale forest changes, urban sprawl, or small agricultural fields. In this course we will analyze extant remote sensing products for tree cover, urban areas, and cropland in sub-Saharan Africa. We will recreate those studies while critically reading about their social contexts. In labs we will learn image analysis approaches that could improve land use maps. As a final project, students will apply those approaches to re-analyze one of the case studies introduced during the semester. (GEOG150 or GEOL0222 or by instructor permission) GEOG 120 is recommended 3 hrs. lect./3hrs lab.