Land health surveillance: an evidence-based approach to land ecosystem management in the West Africa Sahel

This report presents the concepts of land health surveillance a science based approach to land health assessment and monitoring. The approach is modelled on evidence-based approaches used in the public health sector, where surveillance is the main mechanism for determining public health policy and practice. The approach is operationalized using latest advances in earth observation from space, in the field, and on the laboratory bench, combined with geographic information systems and hierarchical statistical methods.