Drought and agricultural change in Central Mali: from agrarian transformation to stasis, 1952 to 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of drought in stimulating agricultural change around one village in central Mali, West Africa. The major hypothesis of the study was that prolonged drought would cause farmers to use their land more intensively and to make technological changes that would be measurable from aerial photographs. Three sets of vertical aerial photographs and one very high resolution satellite image of the 1,314 hectare study area representing 59-year period of time were used to map and measure the patterns of land use