## 3 Results
### Croptype Analyses  
This section provides information about the crop types investigated in the reviewed articles. Figure 10 shows a histogram displaying all the studied crops and a color-coded categorization for clarity. Notably, some studies examine multiple crops, thus multiple entries per article are possible, e.g., one study includes millet and peanut [86] or millet and sorghum [87]. Within the cereal's category, millet is the only representative, yet it is featured in 41 articles. This, in combination with the following crop types, are the four most frequently studied in the literature analyzed for this review: maize/sorghum (59 articles), trees (29 studies), and rice (25 studies). The majority of studies in the category tree are focused on cocoa [78; 88] or palm oil [46; 89; 90]. In addition, the category \"Other\", investigated by 21 articles, is designed to encompass crops that do not fit into the main categories. Cassava and sugarcane are low represented in the reviewed literature. Despite there being  
Figure 9: Overview of the study area compared to the pixel size used in the reviewed publications. **(a)** Scatterplot showing the study area compared to pixel size, with scatter size indicating the proportion of each category in the total reviewed articles. **(b)** Donut chart displaying the distribution of the study area coverage. **(c)** Donut chart showing the distribution of the spatial resolution of RS data used in the studies. 15 studies on cotton, it is classified as \"Other\" as it is a non-food crop, whereas most categories emphasize staple food crops. Peanuts, referred to as groundnuts in some literature, appear in 13 studies. This is complemented by the categories of the beans/legumes and mixed vegetables, each represented 11 times. Overall, the literature addresses the primary staple crops in West Africa as stated by the FAO in Section 2.1. Figure 11 displays a heatmap illustrating the frequency with which different crop categories have been studied across the West African countries. This provides a clear overview of the specific crop categories of interest in the reviewed articles, focusing solely on the West African countries that have been examined. The RS analyses of \"Maize/Sorghum\" are most prominent in Mali (21 studies) and Burkina Faso (19), followed by Senegal (9) and Nigeria (8). \"Cereals\" are also primarily studied in those countries and additionally in Niger. \"Beans/Legumes\" are predominantly studied in Burkina Faso, with fewer studies in Senegal, Nigeria, and Ghana. \"Groundnut\" studies are concentrated mainly on the area of Senegal and Mali, with five studies each. The category \"Other\" includes ten studies in Mali, with fewer in Burkina Faso (four) and Nigeria (three). In other countries fewer than three studies have been conducted in this category. Rice appears in the reviewed articles in nearly all countries, with the exception of Cote d'Ivoire and Togo. In Cote d'Ivoire, the \"Trees\" class dominates, accounting for almost all studies conducted in this study area (eight studies), except for one in the \"Other\" category. Ghana and Nigeria follow with  
Figure 10: Histogram showing the distribution of analyzed crops by type. seven studies each on \"trees\", while Burkina Faso has five studies focused on that category. Vegetables have the least research interest within the framework of this review, with only three studies in each Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria, and one study each in Senegal, Ghana, and Benin. The heatmap additionally indicates that all crop categories have been studied in Burkina Faso and Nigeria, followed by Ghana and Senegal missing only one category. In contrast, only two and three crop categories have been examined in Togo and Cote d'Ivoire, respectively.