For this SERVIR Applied Science Team (AST) project we propose to work with the new West Africa SERVIR region on remote sensing and analysis relating to food security (Thematic Service Area 1) and land use and ecosystems (Thematic Service Area 3). We propose applications that leverage existing NASA-and NSF-funded research by our team and offer significant opportunities for applied products that will contribute to the priorities of the SERVIR hub. Given the critical role of livestock for protein supply across all of West Africa, but particularly in the SERVIR West Africa focal countries (Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal and northern Ghana), this proposal will focus on satellite observation of the productivity and vegetation dynamics of the pastoral zones, with associated implications for livestock production and food security, fuelwood and carbon sequestration, and long-term degradation and resilience of West African rangelands and grazing systems. 9More specifically, this SERVIR-AST proposal will collaborate with the WestAfrica SERVIR hub on training, product development and outreach associated with the following remote-sensing derived applications: (1) mapping woody resources (shrub and tree canopy cover and wood biomass) relevant to fuelwood availability, carbon sequestration and browse production in Sahelian and Soudanian savannas, (2) partitioning aggregate leaf area index (LAI) estimates from MODIS (and eventually VIIRS) into herbaceous and woody components that are critical for intra - seasonal assessment of grazing resources and early -warning of impending crisis in pastoralist communities, and (3) assessing long-term regional vegetation change (degradation and recovery) across West Africa, using remote-sensing based methods hitherto only applied at local scales, to understand long-term change in the region. The applications we propose are already well-developed in terms of algorithms, methods, product design and proof of concept. We will work with the SERVIR regional hub to refine and apply these algorithms tailored to the needs of SERVIR stakeholders across West Africa, including collaborative product definition and data distribution systems, as well as outreach to and training for stakeholders across West Africa. Outreach activities will be designed to facilitate product entry into decision-support applications relating to food security, sustainable landscapes, ecosystem services and environmental change in the SERVIR West Africa region. The PI (Hanan) will be an active and engaged AST team member. He has worked in the pastoral and agro-pastoral regions of West Africa for >30 years, on research relating to remote sensing of vegetation structure, ecohydrology, productivity and pastoral livelihoods. His work has included fundamental scientific research funded by NASA, NSF and NOAA, and applied research-for-development funded by USAID. Hanan has lived and worked in Senegal, Niger and Mali and visited other countries in the region. He has taught (in French) at undergraduate and graduate-levels at the University of Bamako; has close working relationships with pastoralist communities and grassroots development NGOs; is familiar with customs and cultures of the region; and currently has active collaborations and on-going field research projects in Senegal and Mali