In Burkina Faso, more than two-thirds of the population relies on rain-fed agriculture for food and income. However, scarce and insufficient water or irregular rainfall frequently puts farmers at risk of losing their crops. Climate change is making already variable rainfall less reliable. Yet all kinds of water users—farmers, fishers, livestock herders, domestic users, city dwellers, emerging industries–and ecosystems depend on access to water of the right quality, in the right quantity, and at the right time.

Soil and water conservation (SWC) practices like that of erosion control and soil fertility measures were commonly practiced in the semiarid region of southern Mali since the 1980s. The SWC practices were mainly meant to increase water availability in the subsurface, reduce farm water runoff and gully formation and improve nutrient content of the soil, thereby increasing crop yield. Despite such efforts to promote at scale SWC practices, the landscape of southern Mali is still affected by high rates of runoff and soil erosion and low crop yield in farmers’ fields.

The automation of agricultural mapping using satellite-derived remotely sensed data remains a challenge in Africa because of the heterogeneous and fragmental landscape, complex crop cycles, and limited access to local knowledge. Currently, consistent, continent-wide routine cropland mapping of Africa does not exist, with most studies focused either on certain portions of the continent or at most a one-time effort at mapping the continent at coarse resolution remote sensing.

Widespread land degradation has serious negative ecological, social, and economic consequences. This is particularly true for smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa, which are crucial for the livelihoods of the majority of the population and the national economies. Sustainable land management (SLM) is seen as the best way to combat or even reverse land degradation. However, the contexts and conditions hindering land users’ uptake of SLM techniques are often poorly understood. The AGORA project explores the drivers of land degradation at two sites in Tanzania and Malawi.