| Summary: | The Sahel is a fragile region, characterized in recent decades by profound changes in land use, which are the result of complex interactions between societies and their environment. These phenomena, which modulate and transform the landscape, take place on several spatial and temporal scales. However, few studies have highlighted this multidimensional reality, most generally focusing only on the local or regional level, and on a single site. In this study, we mobilized two scales (local and regional) on three different sites. On the one hand, we performed a diachronic mapping of land cover by the analysis of multispectral Landsat images and, on the other hand, we studied its articulation with NDVI and rainfall time series.The results bring out an original synthesis of the land cover trends observed in the Sahelian agro-pastoral zone. They help understanding the complexity of the multi-scale phenomena that characterize the evolution of Sahelian areas. If the analysis of the time series confirms, as has been observed by several authors, an overall regreening trend on a regional basis as a result of the improvement in rainfall conditions from the 1990s, the diachronic analyzes proposed in this study found significant contrasts at finer scales. Considering the total area mapped (Landsat images covering each region), the areas of vegetation cover progression between 1999 and 2010 represent 18 % of the Gourma area and 27 % for Fakara. In terms of net change between 1999 and 2010, in Fakara which has the highest rate of progression (+13 %), the Dantiandou municipality shows, in contrast, a negative rate (-35 %) which is not the case in the two other studied municipalities: +7 % for Téssékré (in Ferlo) and +12 % for Hombori (in Gourma).
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