An interesting exchange of views on humanitarian aid versus satellites (Willem Van Cotthem)

Today I received an email from

“Lee O. Cherry of the African Scientific Institute (www.asi-org.net)” <asi@quixnet.net>

Nigeria Launches Two Satellites

Abuja, Aug 17 (PTI)  Determined to firm up its drive towards technological advancement, especially in relation to Information Communications Technology (ICT), Nigeria today launched two observation satellites into the orbit to be used for disaster management, with President Goodluck Jonathan describing the move as another milestone in his country’s effort to solve national problems through space technology.

The construction and launch of the satellites cost Nigeria N17.42 billion.

Both satellites were built at Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) in Guildford, UK, under contract with the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA). NigeriaSat-X was constructed through an SSTL training and development programme at SSTL in Guildford. In total, 26 Nigerian engineers participated in the project, working on the satellite for 18 months throughout the design and test phases. The NigeriaSat-X offers 22 m multi-spectral GSD across a 600 km swath width.

Dr. S. O. Mohammed, the head of NASRDA, commented: “NigeriaSat-2 will significantly boost African capabilities for remote sensing applications, specifically for natural resource management.

The highly agile NigeriaSat-2 is based on the latest SSTL 300 platform and will deliver multiple viewing modes to a maximum 2.5 m panchromatic (black and white) ground sample distance (GSD) and 5 m multispectral (colour) GSD across a 20 km swath width.

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As for almost 3 decades I am involved in humanitarian aid, I was really shocked by this announcement and therefore posted the following note on my Facebook :

“Nigeria is one of the countries we always wanted to help, e.g. for the Nigerian part of the Great Green Wall. Our objective was to help the poor population of Northern Nigeria to decent food. Today we received an article announcing that Nigeria launched two satellites. Shall we continue to combat hunger and poverty in Nigeria ?”

My friend Laura KIDD replied :

“I have found that this is a common problem in many poor countries, the governments prioritise investment in so called ‘progress’ rather than looking after their populations “

On which I said :

“Yes, but … they continue to ask financial support for combating hunger and malnutrition of their poor children who are so proud with their 2 satellites.”

And she to go on :

“It’s crazy … not easy to decide to continue to give help under these circumstances. It’s a bit like Kenya renting out their land cheap to countries like China and the US to produce food to export back to these foreign countries … whilst the country is receiving huge amounts of food aid to feed their starving populations from Europe each year … completely contradictory situation!”

How many starving children could be saved with N17.42 billion ?

Anyone to add some views to this ?

 

Assessment and mapping desertification in Patagonia (Google / Informaworld)

Read at : Google Alert – desertification

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/98964377-67243621/ftinterface~db=all~content=a907528509~fulltext=713240930

Status of desertification in the Patagonian region: Assessment and mapping from satellite imagery

Authors: H. F. Del Valle^a; N. O. Elissalde^b; D. A. Gagliardini^c; J. Milovich^c

 

Abstract Desertification advance in the Patagonian region is the main socioecological problem. However, in this region the precise location, extent, severity, and characteristics of desertification are often unknown. The objectives of this research were (1) to evaluate, classify, and interpret the status of desertification, based on biological and physical indicators in the Patagonian arid, semiarid, and subhumid region of Argentina; (2) to develop a map of desertification with recommendations for decision makers; and (3) to create a methodology to determine accurately the distribution of land degradation from satellite imagery. Data were obtained from selected cloud-free scenes of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration/Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer “large-area coverage” (NOAA/AVHRR LAC), existing data, and intensive field observations. The combination of the coarse-resolution satellite data of this study with fine-resolution satellite data [Landsat multispectral scanner (MSS)] were the basis for the region-wide assessment of desertification status. From the total region studied (78.5 million ha), 93.6% (73.5 million ha) showed different degrees of desertification. Categories of desertification for the whole region were slight (9.3%), moderate (17.1%), moderate to severe (35.4%), severe (23.3%), and very severe (8.5%). The provinces where reclamation and/or control measures should be applied are, in order of priority, Santa Cruz, Neuqun, Chubut, Ro Negro, and Tierra del Fuego archipelago. Considering the lack of a common management strategy among the provinces, it is recommended (1) to give importance to landscape diversity when managing natural resources, (2) to suggest alternative livestock grazing schemes and management of the environmental heterogeneity, (3) to revegetate or restore degraded areas, (4) to declare some areas Provincial Reserves, and (5) to exclude livestock and collection of firewood either temporarily or permanently.

Keywords: indicators; land degradation; rangelands; reclamation; severity

 

Satellite imaging for monitoring the areas most at risk to support land and water management decisions (Google)

Read at : Google Alert – desertification

http://grouped.biz/2010/11/remote-sensing-data-aid-in-monitoring-global-desertification/

Remote Sensing Data Aid in Monitoring Global Desertification

by Author – who has written 7203 posts on Care Our Health.

Desertification, land degradation and drought deprive people of food and water and force millions to leave their homes. Desertification refers to the creation of new deserts through the degradation of drylands, which cover 40% of the world’s land surface. Land degradation, caused by over-cultivation, over-grazing, deforestation and inefficient irrigation, affects roughly 20% of Earth’s drylands.

To view original article with images visit here http://news.satimagingcorp.com/2009/11/remote_sensing_data_aid_in_monitoring_desertification.html

Free Earth science satellite data to support sustainable development and environmental applications in Africa (Google / JPL NASA)

Read at : Google Alert – desertification

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-325

NASA Partnership Sends Earth Science Data to Africa

PASADENA, Calif. – A unique partnership between NASA and agencies in Africa and Europe has sent more than 30 terabytes of free Earth science satellite data to South African researchers to support sustainable development and environmental applications in Africa.

The data from one of the instruments on NASA’s Terra satellite provide observations of Africa’s surface and atmosphere, including vegetation structure, airborne pollution particles, cloud heights and winds. Transfer of these data to a distribution center in Africa will make it broadly accessible to African users who have not been able to remotely download the large data files because of limitations in the continent’s Internet infrastructure.

High-spectral resolution satellite imagery can dramatically increase the accuracy of dryland monitoring (Leather Living Room Chairs

Read at :

http://leatherlivingroomchairs.com/remote-sensing-data-aid-in-monitoring-global-desertification-steel-storage-buildings.php

Remote Sensing Data Aid in Monitoring Global Desertification – steel storage buildings

Desertification, land degradation and drought deprive people of food and water and force millions to leave their homes. Desertification refers to the creation of new deserts through the degradation of drylands, which cover 40% of the world’s land surface. Land degradation, caused by over-cultivation, over-grazing, deforestation and inefficient irrigation, affects roughly 20% of Earth’s drylands.

To view original article with images visit here http://news.satimagingcorp.com/2009/11/remote_sensing_data_aid_in_monitoring_desertification.html

Satellite imaging technology has been  recognized as playing an important role in achieving this objective by using these methods for monitoring the areas most at risk to support land and water management decisions.

Earth observation (EO) satellite technologies allow land degradation processes to be monitored over time. Monitoring desertification, land degradation and droughts requires continuous evaluation, some of which can be retrieved with earth observation technologies and state-of-the-art geo-spatial applications.

High-spectral resolution satellite imagery can dramatically increase the accuracy of dryland monitoring. Hyperspectral imagery incorporated with field and laboratory data for analysis can be used to derive more quantitative and specific soil properties directly linked to soil degradation status, such as soil chemical properties, organic matter, mineralogical content, infiltration capacity, aggregation capacity, and runoff coefficient.

Combining satellite image data with weather data, numeric models and geographical information systems (GIS) are used to create standardized geo-information products.

Satellite Image data is expected to contribute to a wide array of global change-related application areas for vegetation and ecosystem dynamics, hazard monitoring, geology and soil analysis, land surface climatology, hydrology, land cover change, and the generation of orthorectified digital elevation models (DEMs).

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Remote Sensing Data Aid in Monitoring Global Desertification (blogcatalog)

Read at : blogcatalog

http://www.blogcatalog.com/search/frame?term=desertification&id=f4b9f44d5615d3f624fa817fb138bdfa

Remote Sensing Data Aid in Monitoring Global Desertification

Remote sensing earth observation (EO) satellites provide significant contributions to desertification assessment and monitoring, particularly by providing the spatial information needed for regional-scale analysis of the relationships between climate change, land degradation and desertification processes.

Desertification, land degradation and drought deprive people of food and water and force millions to leave their homes. Desertification refers to the creation of new deserts through the degradation of drylands, which cover 40% of the world’s land surface. Land degradation, caused by over-cultivation, over-grazing, deforestation and inefficient irrigation, affects roughly 20% of Earth’s drylands.

Monitoring sandstorms and desertification in northern China (Google / Informaworld)

Read at : Google Alert – desertification

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a714110324

Monitoring sandstorms and desertification in northern China using SSM/I data and Getis statistics

Authors: Y. -Q. Jin ^a; F. Yan ^a

Abstract

A massive sandstorm enveloped most of northern China during Spring 2002. Monitoring the evolution of sandstorm and desertification has become one of the most serious problems for China’s environment. Since 1989, one of the most advanced and operational passive microwave sensors is the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) operated at seven channels (19, 37, 85 GHz with vertical and horizontal polarization and 22 GHz with vertical polarization only). In this paper, the sandstorm and desertification indexes, SDI and DI, are derived from the radiative transfer equation, and are employed with multi-channel measurements of the DMSP SSM/I for monitoring the sandstorm and desertification in northern China. Some SSM/I data in 1997 and 2001 are employed. The algorithm of the Getis statistics is developed to categorize the spatial correlation and its evolution during these days. It is demonstrated that the SSM/I indexes, SDI and DI, and its Getis statistics are well applicable for monitoring the sandstorm and desertification.

CIAT and ICRAF are “good news” for Africa – The Economist (CIAT)

Read at : CIAT

http://ciatlibrary.blogspot.com/2009/11/ciat-and-icraf-are-good-news-for-africa.html

CIAT and ICRAF are “good news” for Africa – The Economist

The work CIAT and its CGIAR sister-center the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) to digitally map African soils has drawn praise from leading current affairs magazine, The Economist. The article Harvest Moon describes some novel uses of satellite technology to analyze and improve agricultural productivity. It explains how satellites can record electromagnetic radiation reflected by farmland to establish a “radiation signature” of land-use and soil properties.

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ESA DesertWatch Project (Google / Linkages / IISD)

Read at : Google Alert – desertification

http://www.iisd.ca/mea-l/guestarticle83.html

MEA Bulletin – Guest Article No. 83 – Thursday, 24 December 2009

Desertification from Space: The ESA DesertWatch Project

By M. Paganini¹, G. Pace², P. Castracane², G. Del Barrio³, H. Van Delden⁴, M. Iannetta⁵, J. Hill⁶, C. Zucca⁷, and D. Fernandez-Prieto¹

Introduction

Desertification is defined as the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas. It is caused primarily by human activities and climatic variations. It occurs because dryland ecosystems, which cover over one-third of the world’s land area, are extremely vulnerable to over-exploitation and inappropriate land use. Combating desertification is essential to ensuring the long-term productivity of inhabited drylands. Unfortunately, past efforts have too often failed, and around the world the problem of land degradation continues to worsen.  Recognizing the need for an internationally coordinated approach, 193 governments have joined, as of October 2009, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

The desertification and land degradation risk in the north Mediterranean areas is receiving growing attention by the international community, as testified by the numerous national and European projects on the subject carried out during the past few years. Many of them put a lot of emphasis on the exploitation of Earth Observation data. The DesertWatch project of the European Space Agency, which was recently successfully completed, aimed at developing an integrated information system tailored to the specific user’s needs, built on the technological transfer of the most significant results of related research projects.

NASA Tech Zooms in on Water and Land (Science Daily / DOE)

Read at :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091215141520.htm

NASA Tech Zooms in on Water and Land

ScienceDaily (Dec. 17, 2009) — In a pilot project that could help better manage the planet’s strained natural resources, space-age technologies are helping a Washington state community monitor its water availability. NASA satellites and sensors are providing the information needed to make more accurate river flow predictions on a daily basis.

“World leaders are struggling to protect natural resources for future generations,” said Jeff Ward, a senior research scientist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is managed by Battelle. “These tools help us sustainably use natural resources while balancing environmental, cultural and economic concerns.”

An early warning system for droughts (IRIN)

Read at : IRIN
humanitarian news and analysis
a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Global: An early warning system for droughts

COPENHAGEN, 15 December 2009 (IRIN) – Aid agencies will soon be able to learn about the onset of a drought two to three weeks after it starts, giving them a heads-up to plan relief, a senior World Meteorological Organization (WMO) official announced at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen.

At present, the limitations of the indices used to measure dry periods mean agencies only become aware of a drought when they are in the midst of it, said Mannava Sivakumar, director of WMO’s Agricultural Meteorology Division.

Droughts have become more intense and frequent in recent years because of climate change, especially in Africa, but can now be monitored by the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), which uses mean rainfall over a long-term period of at least 30 years as a variable to develop an early warning scale.

New Method to Measure Snow, Vegetation Moisture With GPS May Benefit Farmers, Meteorologists (Science Daily / Univ. Colorado, Boulder))

Read at : Science Daily

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091120135212.htm

New Method to Measure Snow, Vegetation Moisture With GPS May Benefit Farmers, Meteorologists

ScienceDaily (Nov. 23, 2009) — A research team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder has found a clever way to use traditional GPS satellite signals to measure snow depth as well as soil and vegetation moisture, a technique expected to benefit meteorologists, water resource managers, climate modelers and farmers.

The researchers have developed a technique that uses interference patterns created when GPS signals that reflect off of the ground — called “multipath” signals — are combined with signals that arrive at the antenna directly from the satellite, said CU-Boulder aerospace engineering sciences Professor Kristine Larson, who is leading the study. Since such multipath signals arrive at GPS receivers “late,” they have generally been viewed as noise by scientists and engineers and have largely been ignored, said Larson, who is leading a multi-institution research effort on the project.