Classification of anthropogenic landscapes

Several vector-borne diseases thrive in and emerge from transition areas between urban, rural and natural areas. In West Africa, these are generally difficult to map because they are composed of complex mixtures of land cover types. In this paper, we use weekly NDVI time series to map transition environments. The high temporal resolution increases the chance of obtaining cloud-free images and allow to study landscape phenology. While NDVI time series data are mostly used for the study of natural vegetation, this paper focusses on human modification of the landscape. The resulting maps of human landscape utilization are useful for assessing the exposure to disease vectors.