Rasmus Fensholt
Biographic Data
| ID | 5776595 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rasmus Fensholt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rasmus |
| FAMILY NAME | Fensholt |
| SIGNATURE | FENSHOLT R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Copenhagen |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3067-4527 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 82 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 22 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Informal housing adaptation to sociocultural and environmental conditions
Although more than half of the urban population in sub-Saharan Africa reside in informal housing, knowledge about the material and spatial characteristics of such dwellings remains limited. This study examines informal housing practices in the Mabibo neighborhood of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, using detailed surveys of the built environment and household data collection to investigate how dwellings are adapted to contextual conditions. Sociocultural…
Nation-wide mapping shows linkages between sand mining activities, human land use, and hydrology in Rwanda
Quantifying the impact of Great Green Wall and Corporate plantations on tree density and biomass in Sahelian Senegal
The Great Green Wall (GGW) is an international initiative to combat land degradation and restore native plant life in the Sahel, but due to a lack of monitoring tools, it remains unknown to be considered as success or failure. Here, we quantify the impact of GGW plantations and Corporate plantations (privately owned) in Sahelian Senegal based on remote sensing data and deep learning by mapping individual trees and their biomass across the Sahel r…
Central African biomass carbon losses and gains during 2010–2019
Severe decline in large farmland trees in India over the past decade
Agroforestry practices that include the integration of multifunctional trees within agricultural lands can generate multiple socioecological benefits, in addition to being a natural climate solution due to the associated carbon sequestration potential. Such agroforestry trees represent a vital part of India’s landscapes. However, despite their importance, a current lack of robust monitoring mechanisms has contributed to an insufficient grasp of t…
A global analysis of multifaceted urbanization patterns using Earth Observation data from 1975 to 2015
Urbanization as a global phenomenon is a multifaceted process. Here we do the first global attempt to characterize the complexity of urbanization from 1975 to 2015 in terms of population, built-up structure, and greenness per 5 × 5 km2 grid covering global inhabited areas, using Earth Observation data sources. Our results emphasize the multifaceted nature of urbanization that varies greatly across regions and times, in addition to the steady expa…
A large but transient carbon sink from urbanization and rural depopulation in China
Socio-economic and climatic changes lead to contrasting global urban vegetation trends
Urban greening can enhance quality of life by generating ecosystem services and has been proposed as a way of mitigating adverse consequences of global warming for human health. However, there is limited knowledge on global trends in urban vegetation and their relation to economic development and climate change. Here we studied 1,688 major cities worldwide and show that 70% (1,181) show an increase in vegetation derived from satellite observation…
The human–environment nexus and vegetation–rainfall sensitivity in tropical drylands
Responses and feedbacks of African dryland ecosystems to environmental changes
China and India lead in greening of the world through land-use management
Remote sensing and geospatial technologies in support of a normative land system science
Increased vegetation growth and carbon stock in China karst via ecological engineering
Climate data induced uncertainty in model-based estimations of terrestrial primary productivity
Model-based estimations of historical fluxes and pools of the terrestrial biosphere differ substantially. These differences arise not only from differences between models but also from differences in the environmental and climatic data used as input to the models. Here we investigate the role of uncertainties in historical climate data by performing simulations of terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP) using a process-based dynamic vegetati…
Very high CO 2 exchange fluxes at the peak of the rainy season in a West African grazed semi-arid savanna ecosystem
Africa is a sink of carbon, but there are large gaps in our knowledge regarding the CO2 exchange fluxes for many African ecosystems. Here, we analyse multi-annual eddy covariance data of CO2 exchange fluxes for a grazed Sahelian semi-arid savanna ecosystem in Senegal, West Africa. The aim of the study is to investigate the high CO2 exchange fluxes measured at the peak of the rainy season at the Dahra field site: gross primary productivity and eco…
Mapping dynamics of deforestation and forest degradation in tropical forests using radar satellite data
Mapping anthropogenic forest disturbances has largely been focused on distinct delineations of events of deforestation using optical satellite images. In the tropics, frequent cloud cover and the challenge of quantifying forest degradation remain problematic. In this study, we detect processes of deforestation, forest degradation and successional dynamics, using long-wavelength radar (L-band from ALOS PALSAR) backscatter. We present a detection a…
Explaining NDVI trends in northern Burkina Faso
Many studies have shown a ‘greening of the Sahel’ on the basis of analysis of time series of satellite images and this has shown to be, at least partly, explained by changes in rainfall. In northern Burkina Faso, an area stands out as anomalous in such analysis, since it is characterized by a distinct spatial pattern and strongly dominated by negative trends in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The aim of the paper is to explain this…
Advances in monitoring vegetation and land use dynamics in the Sahel
Vegetation dynamics of the West African Sahel has attracted great scientific interest over the last 40 years because of the dramatic inter-decadal variability observed in the resource base of the region directly impacting on the livelihoods of the West African population. From farmers to pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and forest-users, all depend on the availability of vegetation resources and are affected by fluctuations in the available vegeta…
Greenness in semi-arid areas across the globe 1981–2007 — an Earth Observing Satellite based analysis of trends and drivers
The forgotten D
International climate negotiations have stressed the importance of considering emissions from forest degradation under the planned REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation + enhancing forest carbon stocks) mechanism. However, most research, pilot-REDD+ projects and carbon certification agencies have focused on deforestation and there appears to be a gap in knowledge on complex mosaic landscapes containing degraded fores…
Evaluating the quality of AVHRR Pathfinder NDVI data for the African continent using SPOT-4 Vegetation data
Geografisk Tidsskrift, Danish Journal of Geography 106(1):87–102, 2006 The AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) 8 km resolution Pathfinder NDVI (Normalized Difference vegetation Index) 10-day composite data set has been used for numerous local and global scale vegetation time series studies during recent decades. The dataset is a result of considerable processing and resampling from the original 1 km resolution AVHRR LAC (Local Area C…
Water content and land use history controlling soil CO 2 respiration and carbon stock in savanna soil and groundnut fields in semi-arid Senegal
Decomposition of soil organic carbon (SOC) regulates the partitioning between soil C-stock and release of CO2 to the atmosphere and is vital for soil fertility. Agricultural expansion followed by decreasing amounts of SOC and soil fertility is a problem mainly seen in tropical agro-ecosystems where fertilizers are in short supply. This paper focuses on factors influencing temporal trends in soil respiration measured as CO2 effluxes in grass savan…
China and India lead in greening of the world through land-use management
The forgotten D
International climate negotiations have stressed the importance of considering emissions from forest degradation under the planned REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation + enhancing forest carbon stocks) mechanism. However, most research, pilot-REDD+ projects and carbon certification agencies have focused on deforestation and there appears to be a gap in knowledge on complex mosaic landscapes containing degraded fores…
A large but transient carbon sink from urbanization and rural depopulation in China
Increased vegetation growth and carbon stock in China karst via ecological engineering
Socio-economic and climatic changes lead to contrasting global urban vegetation trends
Urban greening can enhance quality of life by generating ecosystem services and has been proposed as a way of mitigating adverse consequences of global warming for human health. However, there is limited knowledge on global trends in urban vegetation and their relation to economic development and climate change. Here we studied 1,688 major cities worldwide and show that 70% (1,181) show an increase in vegetation derived from satellite observation…
Remote sensing and geospatial technologies in support of a normative land system science
Explaining NDVI trends in northern Burkina Faso
Many studies have shown a ‘greening of the Sahel’ on the basis of analysis of time series of satellite images and this has shown to be, at least partly, explained by changes in rainfall. In northern Burkina Faso, an area stands out as anomalous in such analysis, since it is characterized by a distinct spatial pattern and strongly dominated by negative trends in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The aim of the paper is to explain this…
Advances in monitoring vegetation and land use dynamics in the Sahel
Vegetation dynamics of the West African Sahel has attracted great scientific interest over the last 40 years because of the dramatic inter-decadal variability observed in the resource base of the region directly impacting on the livelihoods of the West African population. From farmers to pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and forest-users, all depend on the availability of vegetation resources and are affected by fluctuations in the available vegeta…
The human–environment nexus and vegetation–rainfall sensitivity in tropical drylands
Water content and land use history controlling soil CO 2 respiration and carbon stock in savanna soil and groundnut fields in semi-arid Senegal
Decomposition of soil organic carbon (SOC) regulates the partitioning between soil C-stock and release of CO2 to the atmosphere and is vital for soil fertility. Agricultural expansion followed by decreasing amounts of SOC and soil fertility is a problem mainly seen in tropical agro-ecosystems where fertilizers are in short supply. This paper focuses on factors influencing temporal trends in soil respiration measured as CO2 effluxes in grass savan…
Evaluating the quality of AVHRR Pathfinder NDVI data for the African continent using SPOT-4 Vegetation data
Geografisk Tidsskrift, Danish Journal of Geography 106(1):87–102, 2006 The AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) 8 km resolution Pathfinder NDVI (Normalized Difference vegetation Index) 10-day composite data set has been used for numerous local and global scale vegetation time series studies during recent decades. The dataset is a result of considerable processing and resampling from the original 1 km resolution AVHRR LAC (Local Area C…
Greenness in semi-arid areas across the globe 1981–2007 — an Earth Observing Satellite based analysis of trends and drivers
The forgotten D
International climate negotiations have stressed the importance of considering emissions from forest degradation under the planned REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation + enhancing forest carbon stocks) mechanism. However, most research, pilot-REDD+ projects and carbon certification agencies have focused on deforestation and there appears to be a gap in knowledge on complex mosaic landscapes containing degraded fores…
Explaining NDVI trends in northern Burkina Faso
Many studies have shown a ‘greening of the Sahel’ on the basis of analysis of time series of satellite images and this has shown to be, at least partly, explained by changes in rainfall. In northern Burkina Faso, an area stands out as anomalous in such analysis, since it is characterized by a distinct spatial pattern and strongly dominated by negative trends in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The aim of the paper is to explain this…
Advances in monitoring vegetation and land use dynamics in the Sahel
Vegetation dynamics of the West African Sahel has attracted great scientific interest over the last 40 years because of the dramatic inter-decadal variability observed in the resource base of the region directly impacting on the livelihoods of the West African population. From farmers to pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and forest-users, all depend on the availability of vegetation resources and are affected by fluctuations in the available vegeta…
Mapping dynamics of deforestation and forest degradation in tropical forests using radar satellite data
Mapping anthropogenic forest disturbances has largely been focused on distinct delineations of events of deforestation using optical satellite images. In the tropics, frequent cloud cover and the challenge of quantifying forest degradation remain problematic. In this study, we detect processes of deforestation, forest degradation and successional dynamics, using long-wavelength radar (L-band from ALOS PALSAR) backscatter. We present a detection a…
Very high CO 2 exchange fluxes at the peak of the rainy season in a West African grazed semi-arid savanna ecosystem
Africa is a sink of carbon, but there are large gaps in our knowledge regarding the CO2 exchange fluxes for many African ecosystems. Here, we analyse multi-annual eddy covariance data of CO2 exchange fluxes for a grazed Sahelian semi-arid savanna ecosystem in Senegal, West Africa. The aim of the study is to investigate the high CO2 exchange fluxes measured at the peak of the rainy season at the Dahra field site: gross primary productivity and eco…
Climate data induced uncertainty in model-based estimations of terrestrial primary productivity
Model-based estimations of historical fluxes and pools of the terrestrial biosphere differ substantially. These differences arise not only from differences between models but also from differences in the environmental and climatic data used as input to the models. Here we investigate the role of uncertainties in historical climate data by performing simulations of terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP) using a process-based dynamic vegetati…
Increased vegetation growth and carbon stock in China karst via ecological engineering
China and India lead in greening of the world through land-use management
Remote sensing and geospatial technologies in support of a normative land system science
The human–environment nexus and vegetation–rainfall sensitivity in tropical drylands
Responses and feedbacks of African dryland ecosystems to environmental changes
Socio-economic and climatic changes lead to contrasting global urban vegetation trends
Urban greening can enhance quality of life by generating ecosystem services and has been proposed as a way of mitigating adverse consequences of global warming for human health. However, there is limited knowledge on global trends in urban vegetation and their relation to economic development and climate change. Here we studied 1,688 major cities worldwide and show that 70% (1,181) show an increase in vegetation derived from satellite observation…
A global analysis of multifaceted urbanization patterns using Earth Observation data from 1975 to 2015
Urbanization as a global phenomenon is a multifaceted process. Here we do the first global attempt to characterize the complexity of urbanization from 1975 to 2015 in terms of population, built-up structure, and greenness per 5 × 5 km2 grid covering global inhabited areas, using Earth Observation data sources. Our results emphasize the multifaceted nature of urbanization that varies greatly across regions and times, in addition to the steady expa…
A large but transient carbon sink from urbanization and rural depopulation in China
Quantifying the impact of Great Green Wall and Corporate plantations on tree density and biomass in Sahelian Senegal
The Great Green Wall (GGW) is an international initiative to combat land degradation and restore native plant life in the Sahel, but due to a lack of monitoring tools, it remains unknown to be considered as success or failure. Here, we quantify the impact of GGW plantations and Corporate plantations (privately owned) in Sahelian Senegal based on remote sensing data and deep learning by mapping individual trees and their biomass across the Sahel r…
Central African biomass carbon losses and gains during 2010–2019
Severe decline in large farmland trees in India over the past decade
Agroforestry practices that include the integration of multifunctional trees within agricultural lands can generate multiple socioecological benefits, in addition to being a natural climate solution due to the associated carbon sequestration potential. Such agroforestry trees represent a vital part of India’s landscapes. However, despite their importance, a current lack of robust monitoring mechanisms has contributed to an insufficient grasp of t…
Nation-wide mapping shows linkages between sand mining activities, human land use, and hydrology in Rwanda
Informal housing adaptation to sociocultural and environmental conditions
Although more than half of the urban population in sub-Saharan Africa reside in informal housing, knowledge about the material and spatial characteristics of such dwellings remains limited. This study examines informal housing practices in the Mabibo neighborhood of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, using detailed surveys of the built environment and household data collection to investigate how dwellings are adapted to contextual conditions. Sociocultural…
Environmental Science (19 works) · Geography (19 works) · Ecology (16 works) · Climate change (12 works) · Agroforestry (9 works) · Land Use and Ecosystem Services (9 works) · Vegetation (pathology (9 works) · Biology (7 works) · Physical geography (7 works) · Ecology (6 works)