Earth Observation for Restoration & Monitoring of Coastal Protected Areas in West Africa

Jan 15

Background

Forest conservation and restoration within protected areas are key mechanisms for forest management, climate change mitigation, and curbing biodiversity loss. Recent advances in Earth observation data, analysis, and cloud computing can potentially revolutionize forest monitoring by providing near-real-time information on forest loss, essential data on the condition of forest restoration sites, and valuable metrics on ecosystem carbon stocks. Such information can help organizations improve their effectiveness and access to funding. However many conservation practitioners have few opportunities to acquire the technical expertise needed to access and analyze Earth Observation data to support their land management goals.

Objectives

To address this gap between conservation practitioners and Earth Observation specialists, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is partnering with IUCN, the World Bank, the Gabonese Space Agency, BlueSeeds, the African Union Development Agency’s AFR 100 Secretariat, and Africa Nature Investors Foundation to tailor the development of Earth Observation applications, datasets, and tools that address the specific needs of coastal protected area management.

My Role

As a member of the NASA team implementing the project, I…

engage with project partners to understand their land manage goals,
identify strengths and weaknesses in current land management procedures,
collaboratively design Earth Observation solutions to facilitate decision-making and increase the efficiency of specific land management procedures,
work with NASA colleagues to write code in JavaScript to facilitate Earth Observation data acquisition and analysis focused on vegetation monitoring, land use change, and fire occurrence,
help project partners learn how to use the Earth Observation tool, further customize it to suit their needs, and ultimately incorporate the Earth Observation-based tool into everyday processes to facilitate land management,
organize international workshops and facilitate international collaboration by serving as the team’s French-English translator during meetings with Francophone partners.