Background

Background of Earth Observation for Universities in Africa:

Background#1: Africa is probably the continent which is most vulnerable to climate change and it faces frequent natural disasters such as droughts, floods or bush-fires. Many countries are developing coping strategies to manage their natural resources and to reduce their vulnerability to climate change. As many ministries are building up internal capacity, technical officers with ““Geographic Information Systems” (GIS) and “Remote Sensing” (RS) skills are in high-demand.

Background#2:

EUMETSAT is heavily involved in a series of EU/AUC projects (PUMA, AMESD, MESA and GMES-Africa) which aim to increase the information management capacity of the decision-makers (Ministries) in Africa. Since 2007, EUMETSAT systematically disseminate important Earth Observation (EO) datasets from European data providers in near real time to Africa through their EUMETCast dissemination system at zero cost for the end-user in Africa. EUMETCast uses commercial telecommunication geo-stationary satellites to multi-cast files EO data and products to African users. All National Meteorological Services, many Ministries (Agriculture, Environment, Fisheries, Natural resources) and many Disaster Management Units in Africa have are now starting to use EO data in an operational manner to monitor and protect their environment and their citizens.

Background#3:

Founded in 1959, the University of Limpopo (UL) is a non-profit public higher education institution located in Sovenga in the Limpopo Province in South Africa. The university was initially founded under the apartheid's  regime's policy of separate ethnically-based institutions of higher learning policy, designated for the Sotho, Venda and Tsonga ethnic groups (hence Sovenga).

The University of Limpopo offers courses and programs leading to officially recognised higher education degrees such as undergraduate certificates/diplomas, associate degrees, bachelor degrees, master degrees, doctorate degrees in several areas of study.  The UL has currently have about 18.500 students enrolled. 

The UL normally serves students from disadvantaged backgrounds from rural Limpopo and other parts of the country and the SADC region esp. countries like Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho and Namibia. 

The UL have courses on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) on their curricula, which are taught within the “Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences” (GISEO) within the “Faculty of Science and Agriculture”. The GISEO Department does research on drought, water resources, ecosystems monitoring across the region. The slow growth of the GISEO Unit is mainly linked to lack of financial resources, which can be used to purchase necessary the equipment or earth observation tools and software. 

The Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences has about 253 undergraduate and 18 postgraduate students (MSc and PhDs) adding up to 271. The GISEO unit has 12 lecturers (with 4 PhD holders and 8 with a Masters Degree) and one Lab Assistant. All of them have integrated a GIS and EO component in their lectures. The UL offers GIS and EO modules at 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year as well as for all postgraduate students. All these course (GIS and EO) they are offered with practical’s. The GISEO has two GIS and EO practical labs i.e. (i) one GIS and Remote Sensing Lab for undergraduate students with 30 computers and (ii) one GIS and Remote Sensing Postgraduate Lab with 10 computers.

The access to relevant and recent Earth Observation data, both for educational as for research (PhD-students) purposes, remains a primary challenge for their students. Earth Observation data is widely available and free of charge, but the problem is the physical transfer of the relevant and recent data to Africa. The internet connections in the rural areas of the Limpopo province, including the University Campus,  are generally very poor.

So far, UL obtains most of our EO data from Earth Explorer (https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov) or sometimes via the USGS Global Visualization Viewer (glovis.usgs.gov). However, Downloading EO data from the aforementioned data sources is currently one of the major setback face by the department due to poor internet connectivity. In order to download relevant data, staff and students often go to other Universities such as University of KwaZulu Natal (880km away) with a hard drive to download all images of interest. The University of KwaZulu Natal has a very strong internet connectivity. Due to the lack of data, many students graduate with a lot of theoretical but little practical experience.

Need: 

Students need Near real Time (NRT) EO data to practice their skills with relevant datasets.

PhD-Students need NRT EO data to improve the quality of their research. 

They are “data-hungry”.

Idea: 

The above need for NRT data can be easily solved by setting up a low-cost EUMETCast receiving station within the university and by teaching the university staff on how to operate and maintain the station. With a small investment, the University could fully benefit from the huge stream of NRT data, which comes for free through EUMETCast system day after day.

The EO data can be used to train the students with local and real-time data within the GIS and RS courses as well as in many derived applications (e.g. natural resources monitoring) or to allow PhD and thesis students to conduct their research. The bachelor and master students will then be able to graduate with relevant practical experience.  These competences will put them in a privileged position to find a job in one of their own Ministries, which needed skilled manpower. Their knowledge to monitor the earth from space can then become their ”ticket to the stars”.