**6. References**


This work is supported by the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) for the preparation of the 'Pleiades' mission and joins the *Infolittoral-1* project funded by the French "Unique Inter-ministerial Fund" and certified by the "Aerospace Valley competitiveness cluster" (http://infolittoral.spotimage.com/). Nicolas Barbier has a Marie Curie (UE/IEF/FP7) grant. Research in central Africa is supported by the *Programme Pilote Régional* (PPR FTH-AC) of IRD. We thank J-L. Smock and Michel Tarcy for their strong motivation in mangrove field measurements. We also thank Bruno Roux and Michel Assenbaum for their kind support in providing us for free several Avion Jaune© images

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**4** 

*Mozambique* 

**Remote Sensing of Biomass in** 

*Faculty of Agronomy and Forestry, Eduardo Mondlane University* 

Natasha Ribeiro, Micas Cumbana, Faruk Mamugy and Aniceto Chaúque

**the Miombo Woodlands of Southern Africa: Opportunities and Limitations for Research** 

Biomass and Leaf Area Index (LAI) are two important biophysical properties of vegetation as they inform about vegetation production. LAI is directly related to the exchange of energy and mass between plant canopies and the atmosphere (Fassnacht *et al*., 1997), while biomass reflects the amount of carbon converted through photosynthesis and accumulated in the different plant components. Thus, the two variables reflect much of the potential and

Fire is ubiquitous in most terrestrial ecosystems causing spatial patterning at many scales (Chapin III *et al*., 2003). In tropical savannas in general and, in the southern African savannas in particular, much of the ecosystem functioning is largely defined by the combination of climate, fires and herbivory. Andreae (1993) estimated that fires in the African and the world savannas account, respectively, for 22% and 42% of the biomass burned globally. Moreover, the amount of CO2 exchanged with the atmosphere in southern Africa may represent up to 20% of the regional net primary production (Scholes & Andreae,

In spite of the elevated importance of disturbances in miombo woodlands, there still is a gap in the understanding of the interaction between them and vegetation. This, results partially from the short temporal and spatial scales of observation of much of the existing studies. For example, except for the long-term experimental study carried out in Zambia for 15 years (Trapnell, 1959), the other studies are all *points* in space and time, much of them lasted less than 5-years. Moreover, they address a specific aspect of miombo woodlands functioning, which is important but not sufficient for a complete understanding of this ecosystem. Thus, measurements of large spatial- and temporal-scale variations of vegetation production, disturbances and their interaction are crucial to fulfill the existing data gaps. This is particularly important to understanding the role of this crucial ecosystem in the global

Remote sensing of vegetation production and disturbances is a critical measurement needed to extend the field level understanding of ecological, hydrological and biogeochemical processes to broader spatial and temporal scales in terrestrial ecosystems (Asner, 2004) and the different scales of energy, CO2 and mass exchange between ecosystems and atmosphere

actual production of plant ecosystems (Kasischke *et al*., 2004).

**1. Introduction** 

2000).

carbon budget.

India. *Pondy Papers in Ecology*, 10: 1-71, Available from <http://hal.archivesouvertes.fr/hal-00509952/fr/>

