GEOLAND 2

Towards an operational GMES Land Monitoring Core Service
(FP7 GMES project)

GEOLAND-2 is the Land Monitoring Core Service precursor in the European GMES programme (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security). In the work package on Natural Resource Monitoring in ACP Countries, we have developed a method to regularly feed new satellite data into an environmental indicator framework. Africa has been recognised as one of the continents that is both worst affected by, and most vulnerable to climate variability and change. Changes in the distribution and magnitude of extreme rainfall events observed in many parts of the African continent are associated with both climate change and climate variability.

We analysed spatial and temporal changes in rainfall and vegetation patterns in sub-Saharan Africa over 9 years. The outcome of the analysis, which is foreseen to be updated annually, is a set of maps and country environmental profiles. They identify areas that are thought to have received anomalously low/high rainfall, have suffered a decrease in vegetation cover or have greened up more than usual. This environmental indicator set is being implemented in the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.