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Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs Dr. Paul V. Desanker, Project Director Dr Almeida Sitoe, Project Co-Director Academic Fields: Environmental Sciences and Management
Executive Summary Title: Mainstreaming Use of GIS and Remote Sensing in Environmental Assessment and Sustainable Development Recent science projects between U.S. and African universities have set in place mechanisms for collecting and archiving large amounts of environmental surface observations and satellite remote sensing data. Objectives of these projects include science validation of NASA Earth Observing System satellites, TERRA and Landsat data products, including development of methods for operational analysis and classification of the daily to bi-weekly data streams from these satellites for applications such as land cover mapping and fire monitoring. An opportunity now exists to capitalize upon the utilization of the remote sensing infrastructure and data that have been validated and calibrated and that are now available over southern Africa, in general and over Mozambique in particular. A data archive of most of the Landsat data owned by the University of Virginia projects has been established at the national mapping center in Mozambique (CENCARTA) to store local copies of the satellite data for southern Africa, making it possible to access large amounts of data quickly. However, a need exists within Mozambique to develop the human resources and academic infrastructure to research and use these remote sensing data for sustainable natural resource management. There is also a need to develop applications of environmental remote sensing that inform policy and implementation for sustainable natural resource management including at the regional level. Specific objectives of the proposed collaboration are: (1) to develop teaching and research capacity at UEM in Mozambique in the fields of remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) in the context of environmental monitoring, assessment and sustainable development; (2) to develop a joint research program in environmental assessment and monitoring with regular exchanges of students and faculty between Mozambique and the University of Virginia; (3) to exploit the environmental and remote sensing data sets collected by the Miombo Network and SAFARI 2000 in developing an environmental monitoring program for Mozambique; and, (4) to develop applications of environmental remote sensing and GIS which inform Mozambican national policies and that can directly enhance service delivery on land use management, food and water security, and disaster management. The proposed project will address multi-disciplinary issues within an Environmental Sciences program. The remote sensing technology and GIS that will be used will be applicable to studies of pollution, fires, land use/land cover and impacts on food and water security, land degradation, flooding, biodiversity, management of transboundary resources and an important nascent area of disaster management for the region given recent flooding (and droughts) that have had significant impacts for development. Activities will include: exchange visits of faculty, staff and students; development of a regional curriculum on remote sensing and GIS; development of course materials for modeling and application of remote sensing in environmental management in the form of a workbook and accompanying teaching resources on CD-ROM; courses taught in Mozambique and seminar series/modeling course at UVA; and, a handbook demonstrating the utility of remote sensing and GIS for management and policy. This project will develop human capacity to analyze and apply remote sensing data in sustainable natural resources management, and will lead to operational use of these data in Mozambique. A course in remote sensing and GIS will be developed and integrated into the natural resource management (NRM) curricula of the University of Eduardo Mondlane. Teaching materials produced will be distributed widely in the region and potential exists to apply the courses in other regional universities. 1. Statement of Need and Objectives The past decade has seen a significant improvement in earth observation data using satellites and geographic information management systems that can help address development issues multiple scales. A key challenge for the international community during the next decade is to make geographic information more accessible and useful to decision makers working on sustainable development problems, especially in poor regions such as Africa such as in Mozambique. Geographic information is critical for disaster preparedness and management, especially in assessing vulnerability of rural populations for which there is limited field data available. The recent flooding disasters in Mozambique in the Limpopo and Zambezi River Basins during the rainy seasons of 1999-2001 demonstrated the key role of geographic information in communicating the disaster, and in quickly assessing impacts and planning responses. Most of the geographic data analyses were conducted outside Mozambique, or by foreign agencies, on in one or two centers in Mozambique that have enough trained personnel to analyze remote sensing data. There is a need within Mozambique to develop the human resources and academic infrastructure to research and use remote sensing data and geographic information systems for sustainable natural resource management. The US Government intended that the information produced as part of the EOS program should be used for the betterment and protection of the global environment. Its vision is to provide these remote sensing data at no charge. This is of great potential to developing countries such as Mozambique that is not in a position to both inventory and assess its natural resources without the use of remote sensing products. However, without trained personnel, Mozambique will not be able to exploit the richness of the new technology. The noble objective of the betterment of the global environment can only be realized if the nations of the world are able to apply the information and to contribute to the development of local and regional capacity to address local and regional environmental issues. There is a need to develop applications of environmental remote sensing that inform policy and implementation for sustainable natural resource management. Issues of land degradation, competition for exploitation of shared trans-boundary natural resources, rural poverty are pressing political issues in southern Africa. The fundamental science content of the large scale projects provides useful input to address these problems. However, the scientists themselves must take on the responsibility for developing the policy and delivery implications of their scientific endeavors. This will include direct applications development, in-service training for government and industrial managers in implications of the new technologies, and public outreach. Specific Objectives are1. To develop teaching and research capacity at UEM in Mozambique in the fields of remote sensing and GIS in the context of environmental monitoring, assessment and sustainable development. 2. To develop a joint research program in environmental assessment and monitoring with regular exchanges of students and faculty between Mozambique and University of Virginia. 3. To exploit the environmental and remote sensing data sets collected by the Miombo Network and SAFARI 2000 in developing an environmental monitoring program for Mozambique. 4. To develop applications of environmental remote sensing and GIS which inform Mozambican national policies and that can directly enhance service delivery on land use management, food and water security, and disaster management. 2. Anticipated Mutual Benefits To Mozambique: Input from experienced academic colleagues in remote sensing image processing and interpretation; development of environmental and remote sensing/GIS curricula based on tested UVA courses; links to US Government agencies such as NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; strengthening of institutional research capacity by partnering of Mozambican researchers with USA faculty; enrichment of student academic experience through working with international partners; access for research purposes to privileged Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 scenes (commercial value >$600,000). To UVA: Opportunity to provide non-traditional learning experiences to US faculty and undergraduate and graduate students; Opportunity to add value and to extend results of US funded scientific research in the region ultimately to inform local and regional policy; Opportunity to continue to develop long-term meaningful academic collaborations and exchanges that will result in a mutual educational experience. 3. Description of participating institutions/departments and the rationale for cooperationDepartment of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia (UVA)The Global Environmental Change Program (GECP) is a research group within the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia. GECP has a number of focus regions. The Africa group (GECP-Africa) concentrates on environmental research in Central and Southern Africa. The goal of GECP-Africa is to develop and help apply scientific understanding of the African region in order to establish improved and sustainable resource management practices. The work of the group is funded largely through research grants. In Africa there is a strong dependency on natural resources, and, as a result, a need exists to develop a close linkage between scientific understanding and natural resource management. The scientific approach to this need is to combine theoretical and applied science to address pressing environmental issues of sustainable forestry, food supply, water resources and human health. In response to these issues, partnerships have been established between individual UVA scientists and a number of institutions within southern Africa. In view of successful collaborations extending over the last five years with colleagues at the University of Eduardo Mondlane, the two institutions recently signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding for further long-term collaboration in teaching, research and outreach. The signing of the MOU took place between UVA and UEM administrators in Maputo last August.  University of Eduardo Mondlane - FAEF:The Faculty of Agronomy and Forestry (FAEF) is one of the largest faculties at the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) and it is the only public agricultural and forestry school of higher education in the country. It has grown over the years not only in staff and in students but also in its experience providing education and research in agriculture and forestry. The FAEF is undergoing major changes in its educational, research and outreach programs to respond to the demand. In the 2001-2002 academic year, FAEF started to offer a revamped 4-year B.Sc. program (with two majors: agriculture and forestry) and one 2-year M.Sc. program in Agricultural Development with two fields of specialization (policy analysis and natural resource management). 4. Description of Proposed Activities (1) Exchange visits of faculty, staff and students (see budget for numbers and lengths of stay). Basically 2 senior scientists from UVA will visit Mozambique each year, and 2 from Mozambique will visit UVA, the length will be constrained by the budget. Every attempt will be made to lengthen their stays to maximize interactions. Students will stay at least 3-4 months to particulate in full courses here at UVA. (2) Development of a curriculum on remote sensing and GIS. A course will be designed to address important remote sensing applications for the region including disaster management, water and food security analysis, fire and land cover change monitoring and land use planning. (3) Development of course materials for modeling and application of remote sensing in environmental management in the form of a workbook and accompanying teaching resources on CD-ROM. These materials will be developed during year one and tested in year two, and produced in final format in year three and published as a Workbook. These materials will be distributed widely in the region for use by other Universities. It is anticipated that the University of Botswana, University of Venda (South Africa) and University of Malawi will also test and possibly adopt these materials for their own use. (4) Courses taught in Mozambique and seminar series/modeling course at UVA. A remote sensing and systems modeling course will be taught at the University of Eduardo Mondlane each year of the project and integrated into their curriculum especially their Masters Program in Natural Resource Management. At UVA, a modeling seminar series will be introduced built around this regional collaboration. The visiting faculty and students from Mozambique will participate in this course during their stay at UVA, and they will then take responsibility for teaching these courses in Mozambique. (5) Development of a handbook demonstrating the utility of remote sensing and GIS for management and policy. This handbook will highlight potential applications of remote sensing using local case studies to showcase the many areas for which remote sensing is indispensable. This is seen as a critical outreach component of our project to create a use community in the management and policy world for the remote sensing products and expertise that will be developed. This handbook will be developed by all members of the project, and will use pertinent case studies including disaster management such as flooding, fire monitoring, land use planning, monitoring of conservation areas, and evaluation of pollution. It is expected that this handbook will be distributed widely in southern Africa, and potential exists to publish it on CD-ROM as an interactive multimedia report. 6. Evaluation Plan The major deliverables fall into two categories: Development of course materials that have been tested and revised, and adapted to courses in regional universities. This will include delivery of remote sensing data bundles (on CD ROMS) for teaching. Handbook demonstrating the utility of remote sensing for policy application is planned with case studies to include use of geographic information in disaster management and rural development. 7. Relationship to Past and Existing International Activities Miombo Network (1995 – present): The Miombo is a coordinated network of experiments addressing issue of forest and range-land ecology, land use cover and land change on an east-west transect across central southern Africa in the Miombo biome (Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe). The integration and interpretation of results from RS from the current project will inform the ground-based observations and ecosystem modeling will assist in synthesizing results on a regional scale. While science plans exist for these activities, the educational components are not as comprehensive. This proposal will fill this gap, and assist in ensuring policy implementation of key findings. SAFARI 2000 Regional Science Initiative (1999-2001): An international, multi-disciplinary regional study on the emissions, transport and transformation, deposition and fate of aerosols and trace gases in the atmosphere, ecosystem functioning and validation of NASA EOS satellite instruments. Faculty from UVA (Swap, Desanker, Shugart), were among the key originators of this project, involving scientists from eighteen North American, European and African countries. During the planning phases, the need for science-to-policy and educational activities was realized. The current proposal will allow these issues to be explicitly addressed, while at the same time enabling and strengthening involvement of the South African partners in the interpretation of the RS data. The proposed project will link to national and regional management and policy in southern Africa. This project will prepare materials from the Safari 2000 and related activities for educational use. IPCC and Millennium Assessment (MA) Related Activities: IPCC and MA are interested in regional capacity to develop models and conduct integrated vulnerability assessments (to global environmental changes including climate change). This project will help develop local capacity to conduct quantitative assessments using models.
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