EUMETSAT Annual Report 2021

EUMETSAT ANNUAL REPORT 2021
CASE STUDY
In West Africa,
monitoring droughts
with satellites saves lives
When the rains are good in the Sahel, a region of
Africa just south of the Sahara stretching from
northern Senegal to Sudan, baobabs bloom, millet
and sorghum flourish, and harvests are fruitful.
In 1968, the rain began to stop.
Over the next five years, droughts caused more than half the cattle
population to perish, thousands of inhabitants to flee, and more
than 100,000 people to die of starvation and disease. With no
reliable way to predict rainfall, or how successful harvests would be,
farmers relied on traditional indicators to decide when best to plant
crops. Out of this need, AGRHYMET, an organisation for drought
monitoring in the Sahel, was founded in 1974. AGRHYMET collects,
processes, and disseminates to its 13 member states information
on food security, water resource management, desertification
control, and climate change impacts.
“The majority of food crises in the Sahel are still linked to drought,
caused by a later start of the rainy season, shorter seasons, or dry
spells,” Issa Garba, a remote sensing specialist for AGRHYMET, said.
Actively monitoring for drought begins in May, when experts
combine data from satellites, information from rain gauges,
and hydrological and agrometeorological models to create
seasonal rainfall and hydrological forecasts for July to September.
The data remote sensing experts at AGRHYMET obtain from
EUMETSAT’s Meteosat-11 satellite are crucial. Its Spinning Enhanced
Visible and Infrared Imager provides near-real-time data that can be
used to monitor how long vegetation takes to respond after rainfall.
Experts at AGRHYMET combine this vegetation information with
rainfall estimates to create forecasts, which they pair with practical
advice for farmers in order to help them optimise their harvest.
“Our work is very important for the community because our
maps are shown to the Food Crisis Prevention Network annually
in September and October, during the rainy season,” Garba said,
referring to the international platform that communicates about
food security issues and provides decision makers with the tools
to better provide people with food assistance.
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The Land Surface Analysis Satellite Application
Facility’s fractional vegetation product can be
used to track the progress of growing seasons
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