Drought

The Argentinean SAOCOM 1B satellite [was successfully launched](https://www.argentina.gob.ar/noticias/argentina-lanzo-el-satelite-saocom-1b-y-completo-la-mision-espacial-mas-importante-del-pais) into orbit on 30 August 2020. Developed by the National Argentinean Space Commission (CONAE), this new satellite will join SAOCOM 1A and four Italian COSMO-SkyMed to complete the joint Italian-Argentinean Satellite System for Emergency Management (SIASGE). Like its predecessor, SAOCOM 1B was built in Argentina through a joint effort with private companies and universities. It will operate at an elevation of 620 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster launched the satellite from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, United States of America. The SAOCOM 1B satellite has been fitted with a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensor that makes use of microwaves in the electromagnetic L-band, which goes through clouds and works without… read more

The coronavirus pandemic is compounding the impact of drought, which is already affecting more lives than ever with serious impact on health, the economy and the environment.

Droughts cannot be avoided but their impact can be mitigated by adopting a pro-active approach to drought risk management. In this webinar, a special focus will be given to innovative tools and measures, including monitoring and early warning systems, vulnerability assessment and risk mitigation measures, in the context of the current pandemic.

The UNCCD has last year launched an interactive Drought Toolbox that serves as a platform to provide drought stakeholders with easy access to tools to support the implementation of national drought plans to boost the resilience of people and ecosystems against droughts. As no amount of early warning will work without action to protect the most vulnerable, it is important to combine better forecasts with detailed knowledge on how landscapes and…

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The online platform features over one million geospatial layers and thousands of statistics series related to food security, crops, soil, land, water, climate, fisheries, livestock, forestry and more. It also includes information on COVID-19's impact on food and agriculture.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has launched a geospatial data platform that aims to help build stronger food and agriculture sectors post COVID-19. The Hand-in-Hand system provides access to a wide range of data on food, agriculture, socioeconomics and natural resources.

The platform features over one million geospatial layers and thousands of statistics series related to food security, crops, soil, land, water, climate, fisheries, livestock, forestry and more. It also includes information on COVID-19's impact on food and agriculture. A video describing the tool and its use cases is available online.

The data included in the system has been sourced from FAO and other leading public data providers across the UN and NGOs, academia, private sector…

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The training date is in the past. However, videos and resources of the training can be accessed here. 

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data can be acquired day and night, even in cloudy conditions, providing a dense time-series suitable for trend analysis and change detection.  Environmental applications for SAR data include:

•     forest inventory, biomass estimation and condition monitoring
•     emergency response to floods and landslides
•     habitat and crop mapping
•     soil moisture monitoring
•     offshore infrastructure and vessel monitoring
•     detection of pollution such as oil spills and illegal waste

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) is organising a series of online training sessions on understanding, accessing…

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According to the latest issue of an annual disaster statistics report, floods were the deadliest type of disasters in 2019, followed by extreme temperature, while storms affected the highest number of people. Published by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), “Natural disasters 2019 - Now is the time to not give up” draws on data recorded in the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT), which saw the addition of 396 disasters that affected a total of 95 million and caused $103 billion in economic losses around the world. 

Accounting for 40 per cent of disaster events, Asia suffered the highest impact with 45 per cent of deaths and 74 per cent of total affected. India, which saw cyclone Fani cause destruction in 2019, was the country most…

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In recent years, Mozambique has suffered severe floods and droughts that have impacted urban and rural communities throughout the country. In the March and April 2019, tropical cyclones Idai and Kenneth triggered major floods in Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Comoros.  The Port of Beira was hard hit, as cyclone Idai destroyed transmission lines and bridges, leaving the port without access to these lifelines for several days.   In contrast the powerful El Niño event of 2016 triggered major droughts that affected most of the country. Thousands of farmers lost their crops and their cattle and had to rely on humanitarian assistance to cope with the impacts of this event.

Taking into consideration the benefits of the use of satellite imagery to map the geographic extent of floods and to monitor the effects of drought on vegetation; the Federal University of Santa Maria of Brazil (UFSM), in its role as a UN-SPIDER Regional Support Office (RSO); and UN-SPIDER…

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A new project of the European Space Agency (ESA) aims to combine data from two different Copernicus Sentinel missions to provide estimates of evapotranspiration at the scale of a single field. The European Space Agency’s Sentinels for Evapotranspiration (Sen-ET) project brings together optical data from the Sentinel-2 mission and thermal data from the Sentinel-3 mission to produce evapotranspiration maps at a resolution of 20m. This is not only relevant for sustainable agriculture, but also for water resource management, and can help understand and respond to climate variability, predict droughts and address heatwaves.

Evapotranspiration describes the process of water being transferred from the Earth’s land and ocean surfaces to the atmosphere through evaporation and transpiration from plants. Monitoring evapotranspiration helps identify crops…

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A grantmaking collective committed to creating and mobilizing labeled datasets that facilitate the development of machine learning applications to address urgent problems has launched a new request for proposals (RFP) for funding. [Lacuna Fund](https://lacunafund.org/), which aims to support as many organizations as possible in using artificial intelligence for social good in low- and middle-income contexts, focuses on agriculture, health and languages. This latest request for proposals will fund labeled agricultural datasets for machine learning in sub-Saharan Africa, whether referenced to Earth observation data or related to other aspects of the crop and animal agricultural system. Interested organizations headquartered in Africa or having a substantial partnership with organization(s) headquartered in Africa can [submit their applications](https://meridian.smapply.io/prog/lacunafund_agriculture/) until 3 September 2020. Further details are available from the [authoritative version… read more

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has published a policy study concerning the impending climate risk scenarios in South Asia and their intersection with the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this report is to facilitate policy actions that could protect communities at risk as well as to lay the foundations of resilient recovery of the most vulnerable in South Asia. 

ESCAP has published two additional reports this year, one on the “Impact and Policy Responses for COVID-19 in Asia and the Pacific”, which presents an initial assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic in Asia and sub-regional report entitled “COVID-19 and South Asia: National Strategies and Subregional Cooperation for Accelerated Inclusive, Sustainable and Resilient Recovery”, which provides a comprehensive situation analysis of South Asia. This newly published…

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