Building Capacity for Land Cover Mapping in Africa World Bank Land and Poverty Conference March 26, 2015 Jean Parcher Project Manager U.S. Department of the Interior, International Technical Assistance Program Jean_parcher@ios.doi.gov

Challenges in Africa Global and regional – do they meet national needs? Land use vs. land cover data Lack of data sharing and spatial data infrastructure Multiple donors providing capacity - is it coordinated? Low priority for national government funding

Land Cover in Malawi (March 2014) Assessment of Land Cover Mapping in Malawi Existing Data and Institutional Factors Final Report   Tom Miewald (USFWS) and Phoebe Oduour (RCRMD) Supported by USAID GCC and Dept. of Interior

Opportunities Free and open satellite data (Landsat series, Sentinels, and Google Earth Engine) Regional Center expertise: RCMRD, Nairobi (SERVIR hub) CSIR, South Africa Agrhymet, Niger RECTAS, Nigeria Group on Earth Observations AfriGEOSS Working Group on Land Cover for Africa UNFCCC GHG Inventory National requirements for land use change statistics UNREDD Forest Inventory USFS, USGS, FAO Agrhymet - Created in 1974, AGRHYMET is a specialized agency of the Permanent Inter-State Committee against Drought in the Sahel (CILSS) of thirteen countries are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde,Chad, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania , Niger, Senegal and Togo. The REGIONAL CENTRE FOR TRAINING IN AEROSPACE SURVEYS (RECTAS) was established in 1972 under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) as an educational “one-stop” solution institution that trains highly skilled manpower in the science and technology of geospatial information. RECTAS is located within the campus of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. The Centre is a joint project of African countries, the participating countries at the moment are: Benin, Burkina, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa is one of the leading scientific and technology research, development and implementation organisations in Africa. It undertakes directed research and development for socio-economic growth. he Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) was established in Nairobi – Kenya in 1975 under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the then Organization of African Unity (OAU), today African Union (AU). RCMRD is an inter-governmental organization and currently has 20 Contracting Member States in the Eastern and Southern Africa Regions; Botswana, Burundi, Comoros, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somali, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Working Group on Land Cover for Africa Launched November 2013 at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at GSDI and Africa GEOSS Website http://www.earthobservations.org/afrigeoss_tmp.php Executive Board Eastern Africa - Dr. Hussein Farah, Chair, RCMRD Northern Africa – Dr. Kamal Labbassi, Chouaib Doukkali Univ. Southern Africa – Bulelwa Semoli, National Geospatial Information Indian Ocean – Solofo Rakotondraompiana, University of Antananarivo Central Africa – Aboubakar Mambima Ndjougui, Gabon Space Agency Western Africa – Keita Mahamadou, RECTAS Major Tasks in work: Inventory of Land Cover datasets Methods for accuracy and validation of land cover data for Africa Launching of Technical Advisory Group – GEO 2014 Plenary Co-chairs – Amadou Dieye – Senegal, Jean Parcher – U.S. Bimonthly (every 2 months) conference call

Land Cover for Climate LC4Climate US Department of the Interior (Science, Environment, Natural Resources) International Technical Assistance Program Funding from USAID Global Climate Change program Coordination with UNREDD (Silva Carbon), US EPA, and USGS Global Land Cover Earth Observations Land Cover Capacity Building Build capacity to generate 30 meter resolution land cover data from Landsat imagery Host regional and national capacity training on interpreting, and utilizing land cover data for climate change reporting requirements (GHG, UNREDD+, LEDS). Facilitate interagency cooperation to build consolidated data for multiple uses

Role for LC4Climate Regional Coordination support Technical expertise GEO Working Group on Land Cover for Africa Technical expertise Image preprocessing (USGS) Remote sensing algorithms for land cover mapping (USGS, FWS) Land use change data needs for GHG inventories (EPA, USGS, FWS, FAO) Data providers Satellite imagery Regional land cover Capacity training East Africa West Africa Support for south to south collaboration –South Africa CSIR, RCMRD

Activities - Africa Regional Coordination International Global Land Cover Workshop for Africa Co-hosted with RCMRD, UNEP, and Tsinghua Univ., June 25-27th, 2013 Nairobi, Kenya. Released Final Statement – GEO WGLCA Over 100 participants both from Africa, Europe, Asia, and US Eastern Africa participatory workshop to evaluate USGS 30 meter land cover dataset in cooperation with RCMRD (March 2014) Technical exchange with USGS EROS, South Africa CSIR , RCMRD, Univ. of Maryland, to improve image processing methodology and land cover change processes (July 2014)

Eastern and Southern 30M Land Cover (1) Closed Forest, (2) Open Forest, (3) Shrub lands, (4) Grasslands, (5) Croplands, (6) Barren, (7) Wetlands, and (8) Water Bodies South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, and Kenya

Planned Activities - Africa West Africa Land Cover Change technical workshops using FAO Collect Earth Series of 3 workshops to support land cover and land use change reporting requirements for UNFCCC GHG emission reports in collaboration with FAO (April – May 2015) Senegal (Burkina Faso, Cape Verde) Ivory Coast (Togo, Benin) Ghana GEO Working Group on Land Cover for Africa Complete the land cover inventory for publication on the web Support for the Technical Advisory Group Validation report Lake Victoria Basin Regional Land Cover Workshop In cooperation with East Africa PREPARED Initiative, RCMRD, FEWSNET, USGS (July 2015) East Africa countries – Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi Institutional and Technical Capacity Building Workshop in Malawi to support PERFORM initiative

FAO Collect Earth Free and Open Source Tools for Image Processing and Data Analysis Customizable data collection with direct linkages to imagery in: Google Earth Engine Microsoft/Bing Maps Imagery Nokia HERE maps Land Cover/Land Use collection Sampling approach or wall to wall supervised classification Customizable interface Multi-lingual Output directly links to ALU tool Capacity training by FAO in 18 countries Direct ownership of data and project Point-based LULUCF sampling using multiple sources of free imagery Multi-temporal analysis with 40 years of Landsat data U.S. Department of the Interior International Technical Assistance Program (ITAP)

Recommendations Project based capacity building Capitalize on satellite imagery cloud based systems Build on local knowledge of the environment and drivers of change Allow users to define their capacity needs Increase cooperation between donors to build capacity Provide resources to implement south to south technical cooperation to build communities of practice Strongly encourage open data policies for all doner funded projects