Grass biomass estimation on zambian pastures for future climate change effects mitigation and adaptation using satellite imagery and neural network technique

Livestock productivity is likely to be adversely affected by climate change mainly in terms of feed supply variations. Principal livestock food resources in Zambia and Malawi are grass areas, but very few data are available for supply management and amount estimation. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the procedure adopted for preliminary estimations of grassland biomass retrieval and grass growth cycle identification over a wide area between the Lukulu District and the Mongu District, West Zambia, for the period 1996-2016. The procedure takes advantage of remote sensing observations from multiple sensors and neural networks. The preliminary results obtained are in accordance with the expectations and the seasonal variation is clearly visible in the growth cycles.