African Unification Front
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THE AFRICAN UNION'S ECOLOGICAL FRONT
GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN THE AFRICAN UNION
The analysis of national needs proved that no information system on resources, concerning early warning, forest and rangeland monitoring, planning, catchment management, production of statistics, biodiversity or climate change, can do without reliable and homogeneous basic geographic information, showing both usual landmarks (infrastructures, settlement, hydrography) and land cover.
GIS have become an indespensible tool in ecological planning. For example GIS technology is required to characterise the atmospheric units in Africa, and eventually integrate it into global computer models. We need to know how Africa fits into the global climate picture. We need to know the environmental characteristics of North Africa, as well as the more industrial southern half of the continent, and how they impacted other areas of the globe.
There is a need for an ‘Africanised GIS’ or, GIS for community empowerment that is cognizant and integrated into a historically conscious African community. Equity between Africans and the rest of the world communities is the most important goal in the use of GIS that can be developed on the primary principle that they will ensure fairer treatment of all those affected by use of the information.
GIS is more the reflection of their users than of the GIS establishment itself... The democratization of GIS is as necessary to allow alternative solutions to geographic problems as it is to prevent exploitation by governments and corporations. Such democratization requires the drastic reduction of the costs involved and an increase in the availability of geographical information systems.
Democratic GIS is made possible by the people who practice GIS but, importantly, is maintained by overcoming issues associated with differential access to hardware, software and data. Problems exist with using GIS for grassroots and community forms of development: GIS bears a dual relationship to AT [appropriate technology]. On the one hand, they contradict the principles of AT because of their high cost and the need for high levels of expertise. On the other hand, they complement AT because the tools are useful for uncovering local resources. This contradiction is also apparent in research on participatory GIS for rural land reform in Azania. Aphaean definitions of knowledge and meaning, represented as technical data in a computer system, are reified.
The potential for incorporating local knowledge within an alternative GIS production in pursuit of a participatory land reform project in the rural locality in Africa. In these communities, as with many others in the country, the non-reliance on infrastructure such as electricity, as well as the previous deliberate withholding of technological instruction access, make the inherent contradictions of culturally-ignorant GIS users actually placing a ‘high-tech’ participatory GIS in such communities starkly apparent.
Empowering communities through the use of GIS will require a critical understanding of "hostic" communication partnerships (usually lacking in western trained "techies") between GIS users and African community organizations.
The deployment and application of GIS, information technology (IT), and productive communication technologies have tended to manifest of present in ways that were oppressive. The significant inroads into the African body politic that Aphaean technologies have made have been abusive and exploitative. Technologies are not fully exploited for the well-being of Africa. And this is not for lack of capacity. A large number of Africans have participated in developing these technologies over the last decade. In addition to a significant rise in the application of the technology in recent times, there has been a growth of an active private sector in geo-information in several African states providing in-country support for users of the technology.
Used together with the ever-evolving information management and communication tools and techniques, there could be tremendous benefits for Africa. Geo-information technologies and the Internet are some of the integral tools for African governments to assist them manage and exploit their natural resources for the benefit of their people and development of their countries.
The SAFARI SATELLITE & AFRICOVER
The SAFARI satellite is one in a string of satellites that make up the TERRA platforms. Some of these include the TRMM, a tropical rainfall measuring mission launched in 1997, LANDSAT 7, an atmospheric-measuring satellite launched in April 1999, and QUIKSCAT, launched in 1999 to measure surface winds. A lot of the satellite information is freely available on the world web and is useful in resource management and planning.
Projects are required that will monitor and evaluate the carbon dioxide and methane levels in the African Union and the global atmosphere, along the monitoring of other environmental indicators.
Evaluation systems in use in the African Union rely on satellites for ecological evaluations around the world that are revolutionizing our understanding of precise changes in the land, oceans and atmosphere. For instance the Earth Observing System satellite is providing images, that are compared with tests done on the ground in the foot-hills near agricultural burning or from air samples taken during flights over Africa.
Together the validation process forms a system of checks and balances, and gives a broad geographic picture (approximately 1,426 miles in length per snapshot), but it only occurs at certain times of the day. The ground measurements don't cover much ground but they are performed through-out the day.
FAO is involved in the organisation of an initiative called AFRICOVER,
whose goal is to establish, by and for the whole of Africa, a digital geo-referenced database on land cover and a geographic referential (geodesy, toponymy, roads, hydrography) at a 1:250,000/1:200,000 scale (1:100,000 for some states countries and specific areas) using satellite remote sensing data. This base is also generalised at a 1:1,000,000 scale, updated, made homogeneous and comparable from thematic and geographic points of view on the whole African continent.
AFRICOVER was approved in July 1994 at the ECA headquarters, in the capital of the African Union, Addis Ababa. It inlvoves 10 regional organisations of the African Union including IGADD, SADC, CILSS, RCSSMRS, OACT, CRTO, CRTEAN, and RECTAS, as well as UNEP, UNDP, FAO, UNITAR and 19 international and national organisations. FAO acts as the executing agency of the project.
AFRICOVER has also reinforced and to built up sub-regional capacities for the establishment, update and operational use of the geographic referential and land cover maps and geodatabases. AFRICOVER prepares the basic geographic information common to the information components of actual and future programmes on natural resources in the African Union.
The mapping activities are done in the Regional Centre for Services in Surveying Mapping and Remote Sensing (RCSSMRS) in Nairobi, where technicians from all of the African Union are sent and given on-the-job training during the project duration. They systematically interpret the satellite data coverages of various locations in Africa. They prepare thematic mapping, participate in photointerpretation with GIS technicians, and collect field data on GPS ground controlled points. Moreover, all centres in the African Union receive the products of the project including the final printed thematic maps, satellite imagery and data bases.
The project creates digital Data Bases on Land cover and geographical reference; prints maps, defines methodologies, reference, training, manuals; produces up-to-date GIS, IP equipment, SW and peripherals trained GIS officers.
WHY GIS ARE NECESSARY
The renewable natural resources of the African Union are under severe strain and most indicators point toward a continuation of this trend. The rate of degradation and depletion of these resources has been accelerated in proportion to the increasing population concentrations. Deforestation, desertification, soil erosion and salinisation have degraded the environment so that the food security and economic and social growth of the African Union is threatened.
Although a lot of new remote sensing data for the assessment of natural resources is available, and technologies exist for its storage, analysis and integration, the actual situation in the African Union shows a severe shortage of nation-wide, as well as regional and sub-regional, quantitative and qualitative information on vegetation cover and current land use. This fact is the major limiting factor in proper planning, development and sustainable management of renewable natural resources in Africa.
Resource managers require rapid and accurate methods for accuracy and interpreting data for the development and management of the resources of Africa. Earth surface remote sensing including the mapping and analysis of the spatial distribution of land cover offers considerable advantages over current alternative methods of conducting such studies. Advantages include the potential for accelerated surveys; capability to achieve a synoptic view; availability of multi-spectral data providing increased information; capability of repetitive coverage to depict seasonal and long-term changes; the relatively inexpensive cost of monitoring from space; the opportunity of integrating existing surveys into an updated monitoring system; the change detection capabilities needed by regulatory programmes for updating information on vegetation/ terrain conditions; availability of imagery with minimum distortion, thereby permitting direct measurement of important agrophysical parameters; and the fact that remotely sensed data provide a permanent record.
Remote sensing technology provides a vehicle for rapid collection of current detailed land use and resource data for a variety of planning purposes which is so urgently needed in Africa. In particular, high resolution satellite remote sensing can provide land cover digital data bases at a scale equal or greater than 1: 250000; which is particularly well suited for detailed environmental resource assessment.
FAO has achieved considerable progress on the pedological side through the preparation of the soils map of the world at 1:5 million scale. Comparable investment now needs to be made in the mapping of large parts of the African Union where a regional perspective on development is necessary but where the information resource base is least developed.
From the interpretation of this imagery and the preparation of land cover maps and their integration into an information system, a permanent record is created which lends itself to revision and updating from many sources including additional remotely sensed data, ground surveys and aerial photographs. The integration of this new source of land cover data with other resources type information will improve the quality of resource management in the region.
The preparation of AFRICOVER products relies essentially on remote sensing data and geographic information systems (GIS). The land cover is derived from visual interpretation of digitally enhanced high resolution satellite images. It is done according to a homogenised and hierarchical classification system. The geographic referential will be derived from existing topographic maps and updated from remote sensing documents and ground surveys georeferenced from GPS points.
The geometrical base that is used as a reference depends on the quality of the geodetic network and of the topographic maps. It could be either the existing topographic maps themselves, or the satellite images geocoded with GPS measurements using spatiotriangulation techniques.
RESTRICTIONS ON AFRICAN GIS DEVELPMENT
Unfortumnately, but not surprisingly the World Bank insisted on a state by state in which each African states independently joins the project. This approach is inconsistent with the attitudes and spirit of the African Union. The states have the responsibility and the control of contracts and international expertise. Co-ordination, monitoring and training should be entrusted to a the African Union in order all regions are organised simultaneously.
Co-ordination by the African Union will be allow common execution of technical activities. FAO's objective is to assist the preparation (technical, institutional and financial arrangement) and the technical monitoring of AFRICOVER. Beyond this technical assistance function, FAO offers to act as a normalisation and labelling agency for AFRICOVER: this role consists in defining in detail, in the framework of international working groups, the standards to be applied in the African Union in terms of information, tools, analysis methods and procedures. This standardisation will greatly integrate the state and sub-regional specificities: it is absolutely necessary, from a technical point of view, to allow an homogenisation and a better distribution of final products (databases, maps), as well as important scale savings for production, update and use of georeferenced data on resources. FAO guarantees that these standards are respected and will deliver an AFRICOVER label. FAO in some cases (as in the Eastern Africa module) is involved as execution (or co-execution) agency for the project.
GIS USERS IN THE AFRICAN UNION
Potential users of GIS data are numerous:
Governmental: such as the African Union, states ministries of agriculture, water, forestry, environment, statistics bureaux, cartographic institutes, research centres, universities, private companies and organizations:
Regional/International: such as CILSS, IGAD, SADC, OACT, RCSSMRS; Banks (such as the African Development Bank) and Community Development NGOs such as UN Bodies and Agencies such as ECA, UNDP, UNEP, WMO, UNITAR, FAO; Scientific and professional bodies, organizations involved in rural development, such as OXFAM, CARE, WWF, WCMC, IUCN, WRI.
Practical applications of the AFRICOVER concern all information and monitoring systems on natural resources and the environment. The AFRICOVER and SAFARI are the common denominator information data set necessary to all geographical information systems and in particular in relation to:
Resource inventory and evaluation for:
Monitoring of Forest and Rangelands at local and regional levels (localization stratification of forest and range lands); the Production of local, state and Union Statistics (sampling frame, acreage of forest, agriculture types)
Resource planning for:
African Union environment planning (identification of environmentally sensitive areas); Forest action plans (mapping of forest types and agriculture encroachment); Field investment projects (project identification, preparation and evaluation)
Union and regional resource management for:
Early warning - food security (identification stress prone areas and base for NOAA calibration); Large watershed management (run off modeling according to vegetation cover catchment areas, identification of water requirement according to different types of croplands); Desert locust control (Habitats for locust breeding, tracts, susceptible to locust invasion)
Environmental impacts for:
Biodiversity assessment and monitoring (mapping of main ecological formations); Climate change, global monitoring (segmentation of terrestrial environment IGBP, TREES, HAPEX); Desertification control (mapping of zones susceptible to desertification base from NOAA NDVI monitoring).
Many ongoing initiatives (early warning, mapping projects, environmental information, in general or for specific environmental sectors) are present for example in the East Africa Region both at State and International level with which GIS projects can establish suitable links in order to: exchange data/resources for mutual benefit; and act as a data/information provider benefit from other project experience.
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