African Applied Remote Sensing (Technology/Methodology): a comparative evidence study of Technology/Methodology pathways, implementation constraints, and policy implications in Africa

The problem addressed is not scarcity of imagery but the absence of defensible rules for combining heterogeneous layers into planning thresholds under data-sparse dryland conditions. Three sensor and processing pathways are compared, encompassing optical multispectral mapping, synthetic aperture radar and digital elevation model derived hydrology alongside public rainfall products. The framework formalises normalisation, weighting and aggregation properties, specifies a geographic information systems workflow from administrative units through buffer analysis and kernel density estimation to threshold selection, and clarifies how classification confidence contracts as thresholds tighten. Implementation constraints concerning geodetic control, soil information, maintenance capacity and institutional uptake are examined with consequences for Libyan planning practice. The contribution is a reproducible logic for moving from pixels to policy thresholds without overstating what sparse data can support.