Relationship between rainfall and vegetation indexes in Burkina Faso: a case study of the Nakambe basin

This work deals with the problem of the use of remote sensing data derived from NOAA/AVHRR observations for monitoring the West African Sahel climatic variability. NDVI is widely used in hydrological and climatological research, and in the study of global climatic changes. The relationships between NDVI and climatic parameters are not well established yet and are the focus of many studies. The relationships between NDVI and rainfall were studied at a 10-day time step in the Nakambe River basin in Burkina Faso in the Sahelo-Sudanian area over the years 1982-1999. Good correlations were found in the annual evolution of these two variables. The statistical analysis shows a significant relationship between NDVI and the sum of the annual rainfall with determination coefficients greater than 0.80. At the spatial scale of 0.5 degrees x 0.5 degrees, the determination coefficient ranges from 0.91 to 0.96. It was also found that the NDVI is a good indicator of the determination of the beginning and the end of the rainy season. It gives reasonably good results in comparison with the other methods commonly used in the study region