A cloud-free image of all of Africa produced by combining tens of thousands of satellite image collected throughout an entire year. The new AWS data centre in Cape Town stores millions of images, making these new products possible
Food security is a fundamental human right and means people have access to enough safe and nutritious food that meet dietary requirements at all times. It has been estimated that current production of crops will need to double by 2050 to meet future needs. Two-thirds of African countries are net importers of food and with the COVID-19 pandemic not yet reaching its peak, it is feared food shortages will severely impact food security.
The Simiyu agriculture show dubbed in Swahili as ‘NaneNane2020’ was held from Monday 3 to Saturday 8 August and brought together local and international agriculture stakeholders to exchange expertise and discover trends and developments. The Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) took the opportunity to present how Earth observations (EO), using Digital Earth Africa (DE Africa), can help tackle environmental problems.
Desertification and Drought Day, observed every year on 17 June, is led by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to promote international efforts of combating desertification and drought. Today we join the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Tanzania to share how Earth observation (EO) can be used to monitor the effects of drought.
Today is World Environment Day, observed every year on 5 June to raise awareness of protecting our planet. The theme for 2020 is Biodiversity: Time for nature. To celebrate, we take a look at how Earth observations (EO) are supporting Tanzania to make data driven decisions on conserving the biodiversity of mangroves in Zanzibar.
Water management is vital to Africa’s future, but limited water data makes it challenging. Earth observation satellites collect vast amounts of data over Africa every day, some of which can be used to measure and monitor water. The Digital Earth Africa partnership organizes decades of satellite data – updated daily – into an analysis-ready ‘Open Data Cube’, and IWMI will work with them to develop tools to translate this data into decision-ready information for water resource management.
Digital Earth Africa is an ambitious program, but has made significant progress to date. At the Digital Earth Africa side event as part of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Week 2019, we showcased where we are now and welcomed a number of the program’s partners and collaborators to share the work being done to ensure the data products created can be used and will have an impact.
As part of the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is supporting Digital Earth Africa (DE Africa). DE Africa is enabling African nations to track changes across the continent in unprecedented detail by making Earth observation (EO) data more easily accessible.