Abstract The relationship between climate and land use land cover change over West Africa has often been assessed with climate simulations, although the model-based approach suffers from the limitations of climate models specifically for West Africa. In this paper, an alternative approach based on physical analysis of historical land cover data and standardized climatic indices is used to investigate climate-land interactions to establish the climatic thresholds and their corresponding land use impacts. Annualized land change intensities and the climatic indices are first estimated separately and then linked at various spatiotemporal scales. The result shows that climate-induced land cover change results from abrupt changes in climatic conditions. A regional change of (-1.0–1.0)\(℃\), (0–1.5)\(℃\),(-0.5–0.5)\(℃\), and up to \(\pm\)50 mm changes in precipitation and climatic water balance leads to (45039–52133) km2, (20935–22127) km2 and approximately 32000 km2 changes respectively, while a \(\pm\)0.5\(℃\) and \(\pm\)20 mm change represents normal climate conditions with changes below 20000 km2. Conversely, the plausible pathways through which West African land surface impacts the climate is the conversion of cropland, forest, grassland, and shrubland. The average climatic risk ranges from − 0.025 to 0.025 yr−1 while the probability of occurrence ranged variably from 0 to 0.833. The results offer the basis to re-evaluate land and climatic information necessary for improving the reliability of climate models over West Africa. For sustainable development, this work reveals the need for policy-driven interventions for efficient resource management and the prevention of degradation and deforestation in the region.