Progress in remote sensing: vegetation monitoring in South Africa

The application of remote sensing has progressed remarkably over the years, with technological advancements that have led to the availability of efficient, relatively cheap, robust, as well as high resolution images. Remarkable progress has been made on crop, forest and rangeland monitoring, using satellite data. This paper reviews progress in the application of remote sensing technologies in South Africa with a specific focus on vegetation monitoring. Vegetation state monitoring has been identified by the South African Mission Advisory Committee (EO – MAC) as the primary objective of the proposed EO-SAT1 satellite to be launched in the near future. The paper provides a review of the developments in the science of satellite remote sensing as it quantifies the studies that have been done, using specific sensors and evaluates the importance of sensor resolution and data availability for South Africa. Specific application examples are used to showcase the developments. An analysis of studies shows that South African scientists have used a wide range of satellite data and developed novel processing techniques with applications specific to the environmental conditions of the region. However, this work has observed that, for accurate and reliable vegetation monitoring at a national scale, access to relatively cheap satellite data with optimal spectral band information is limited.