Identifying ecotopes on a regionalscale in Burkina Faso

Sudano-Sahelian West Africa is expected to undergo major changes to its biophysical systems asa result of climate and land use change. A majority of the population in Sudano-Sahelian BurkinaFaso is directly dependent on the land for their livelihoods. Therefore, in light of the expectedenvironmental changes, it is essential to understand how social and ecological systems areinterlinked to safeguard people’s livelihoods. For this purpose, a landscape approach focusing onecotopes was developed by Sinare (2013) for mapping the sets of provisioning ecosystemservices supplied in the village landscape. To increase management relevance, the purpose of thepresent study was to investigate if and how the ecotopes can be scaled up. The results show thatthe ecotopes can be generalized from the village scale to a larger landscape level and that theecotopes can be mapped to a degree satisfactory enough to capture the composition of thelandscape using easily accessible remotely sensed data. These maps can then be used in thedecision process when designing locally adapted management interventions that will help sustainthe social and ecological resilience in Sudano-Sahelian Burkina Faso, a multi-functionallandscape that is undergoing large environmental and societal changes