Thursday, July 28, 2011

Namibia's satellite centre to warn of disaster threats

Servaas van den Bosch in SciDev.net: A new satellite data centre in Namibia will help farmers prepare for droughts, floods, bushfires and pests.

The Earth Observation and Satellite Applications Research and Training Centre (EOSA-RTC), was launched this month (6 July) in collaboration with the African Monitoring of the Environment for Sustainable Development programme (AMESD). It is located at the Polytechnic of Namibia and comprises a satellite data receiving station and data centre, which will provide data useful for agriculture.

The data, which will be provided free to farmers' associations and government departments, will include water indices, rainfall estimates, and maps of soil moisture content.

Reliable data is essential to preparing for natural disasters. Earlier this year Namibia was hit by record floods, although rainfall is generally scarce. Wildfires are expected to wreak havoc in the current dry season...

From NASA, a satellite picture of the city of Rundu, Namibia. the city center is visible in the upper center of the image

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