The FAO Senior Locust Forecasting Officer, Keith Cressman, presented an initial evaluation of the dynamic greenness maps developed by the Dept. of Environmental Sciences and Land Use Planning / Environmetrics and Geomatics at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), Louvain-le-Neuve, Belgium.
The dynamic green vegetation map includes both the spatial and temporal information in one geotiff-formatted file suitable for analysis within the SWARMS GIS. The map shows the evolution of vegetation development for the previous 11 decades (i.e. eleven 10-day periods) for each 250m pixel, indicated in varying shades of red, orange and green. The product informs the user, in this case FAO’s Locust Forecasting Officer, of the spatial-temporal variations of the green vegetation and indirectly of the rainfall distribution through vegetation development. This allows the onset of green vegetation, and ephemeral vegetation (false starts), and the disappearance of vegetation at the end of its developmental cycle to be identified. It also indicates the location of evergreen vegetation that is of less importance to Desert Locust. The reporter presented his initial assessment of the new product, indicating some recession areas where vegetation changes are not detected.
56. Initial impressions of the UCL product
non-seasonal sporadic rainfall
in hyper-arid areas misses green vegetation
(Algerian Sahara)
seasonal rainfall
misses green vegetation in north
in N Sahel summer breeding areas
better in south
(Mauritania)
SW Asia monsoon rainfall
some vegetation changes detected
in summer breeding areas
other vegetation?
(Pakistan)
rainfall on Red Sea coast
difficult to detect annual vegetation
in breeding areas
better in cropping areas
(Yemen)
sporadic rainfall
more reliable in cropping areas
in summer breeding areas
than in desert
(Yemen)
Wednesday, 11 January 12
57. Phase 2
further refinement according to area and time of year
hyper-arid areas in the Sahara (all year)
northern Sahel, Indo-Pakistan,Yemen interior (summer)
Red Sea coast (all year)
Wednesday, 11 January 12