EUMETSAT hosted a workshop at its headquarters to create a roadmap for cooperation that would enhance the use of satellite data for water management in Africa.
Hydrology cooperation
The workshop, hosted on March 19-21, 2024, welcomed representatives from the African Union Commission (AUC); the Nile, Congo and Niger river basin authorities; national and regional institutions from South Africa, Senegal, Nigeria and East Africa; along with representatives from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the French Space Agency (CNES). EUMETSAT’s Operational Hydrology and Water Manager Satellite Application Facility (H SAF), which has been providing products covering Africa for the past five years, also participated in the workshop.
“The AUC emphasized two main priorities that guided our discussions,” EUMETSAT international relations officer Vincent Gabaglio said. “The first was water as a source of risk, and the need for early warning related to floods, landslides and droughts, and the other was enhancing water resource management, which is key to meeting the needs of diverse communities.
“EUMETSAT and its SAFs can contribute Earth-observation products, such as soil moisture, precipitation estimates and evapotranspiration products, to African experts to support their work in those areas. The objective of the workshop was to develop a roadmap for cooperation, to understand their needs and priorities and how we could support them.”
Satellite data for water management
According to EUMETSAT, the workshop identified four areas of work: improving access to Earth observation data; facilitating scientific cooperation to validate satellite data products; strengthening capacity and exchanging knowledge; and furthering engagement and deepening dialog, particularly through the African Network of Basin Organisations.
In relation to improving access to data, new PUMA-2025 reception stations are about to be rolled out throughout the continent with functionalities to enable visualization of H SAF products. These are intended to enable African meteorological, hydrological and climate experts to receive EUMETSAT satellite data and products. Consortia involved in the African Union Commission’s GMES and Africa and ClimSA programs, both funded by the European Union and in which EUMETSAT is involved, indicated their interest in supporting product validation.
The French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) Laboratory of Space Geophysical and Oceanographic Studies (LEGOS) lab, which provides satellite altimetry products for measuring river levels, will also contribute to validation and capacity-building efforts. The WMO also expressed its willingness to support training in this area in collaboration with EUMETSAT and its SAFs.
In related news, EUMETSAT and the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) recently renewed their long-standing cooperation agreement during a meeting in Beijing. Click here to read the full story.