part Part 1: Setting the scene: principles in remote sensing and spatial scene modelling for land degradation assessment -- chapter Coupled human-environment system approaches to desertification: Linking people to pixels / chapter Remote sensing based assessment of biophysical indicators for land degradation and desertification / chapter Integrated environmental modelling to characterise processes of land degradation and desertification for policy support / chapter Estimating area-averaged surface fluxes over contrasted agricultural patchwork in a semi-arid region / part Part 2 The global perspective: strategies for large area mapping -- chapter Potential of long time series of FAPAR products for assessing and monitoring land surface changes: Examples in Europe and the Sahel / chapter Inter-comparison of MEDOKADS and NOAA/NASA pathfinder AVHRR land NDVI time series / chapter Change detection in Syria's rangelands using long-term AVHRR data (1982-2004) / chapter Hot spot assessment of land cover change in the CWANA region using AVHRR satellite imagery / chapter Fuzzy integration of satellite data for detecting environmental anomalies across Africa / chapter The spatial uncertainty of desiccation in the West African Sahel and its implications for land degradation / chapter Onogoing desertification processes in the sahelian belt of West Africa: An evidence from the rain-use efficiency / part Part 3 Taking a closer look: biophysical indicators of vegetation and soils -- chapter Vegetation cover and biomass along climatic gradients: The synergy of remote sensing and field studies in two Eastern Mediterranean sites / chapter Modelling species distributions with high resolution remote sensing data to delineate patterns of plant diversity in the Sahel zone of Burkina Faso / chapter Retrieving rangeland vegetation characteristics through constrained inverse reflectance modelling of earth observation satellite imagery / chapter Using reflectance spectroscopy and Landsat data to assess soil inorganic carbon in the Judean Desert (Israel) / chapter Simulating Multi-angle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer (MISR) sampling and retrieval of soil surface roughness and composition changes using a bi-directional soil spectral reflectance model / chapter Mapping land degradation risk: Potential of the non-evaporative fraction using Aster and MODIS data / part Part 4 Stories behind pixels: process-based assessment of geospatial data -- chapter Geomatics-based characterization of spatial and temporal trends in heterogeneous Mediterranean rangelands of Northern Greece / chapter Integrating GPS technologies in dynamic spatio-temporal models to monitor grazing habits in dry rangelands / chapter Satellite image processing and geo-statistical methods for assessing land degradation around watering points in the Ust-Urt Plateau, Kazakhstan / chapter Landscape analysis using multi-scale segmentation and object-oriented classification / chapter Land use and carbon stock capacity in slash-and-burn ecosystems in mountainous mainlands of Laos