Building Africa, Poverty Eradication programmes in Africa

Earth Observation enabled decision support for Flood and Drought Resilience in Ethiopia and Kenya

 

Project Lead: Airbus Defence and Space

 

Funded by: UK Space Agency

 

Project consortium:

Airbus Defence and Space, Vivid Economics Ltd, Oxford University, Sayers and Partners LLP (SPL), GeoSAS Ltd

International partner in Kenya: Building Africa (BUA), Kenya: BUA is a continental non-for-profit NGO headquartered in Kenya. It looks to promote and develop integrated and coordinated strategies for the building of Africa.

 

Project Summary:

This project focuses on building flood and drought resilience in Kenya and Ethiopia to support poverty alleviation. In Ethiopia it will focus on building an improved understanding of flood and drought hazards and risks to help build social and economic resilience to water-related hazards. In Kenya it will focus on the effectiveness of Earth Observation data for the micro-insurance market, an important tool for farmers who currently have little or no access to insurance. This will be supported by the development of a flexible dashboard with tailored information to assist decision making related to flood and drought at basin level in Ethiopia (working with the Ministry of Finance) and local level in Kenya (working with women farmer intermediaries and micro-insurance actors).

 

Project Objectives:

• Increase the resilience of Ethiopia to water-related shocks and stresses through the integration of risk information, arising from satellite data incorporated into physical and financial models, into planning and investments.

• Enhance the livelihoods of farmers in Kenya through providing drought onset information and flooding information that informs the micro financing (insurance) of crops.

• Capacity building in Ethiopia and Kenya and development of a sustainable business model going forward.

• A user-friendly, flexible dashboard which delivers decision-support information relevant to different stakeholders for flood and drought resilience in Ethiopia and Kenya.

 

Satellite solution:

This project will initially use Earth Observation data from the Sentinel 2 satellite and the UK-built DMC2 satellite with additional data from the KAZSTSAT satellite once it is launched. In addition space derived weather, climate, and elevation data will be heavily used in the project. The data will be used in a drought modelling mechanism and the outcomes, which are expected to include present weather conditions and forecasts, will be presented to the users via an online dashboard.