Using remote sensing and GIS for drought impacts assessment on vegetable health
Droughts have increasingly impacted agriculture, the environment, water supplies, and the livestock grazing of many communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, raising concerns about food security in the region. This project funded by CROSS (a collaboration between EPFL and UNIL), and focuses in assessing the impact of drought on vegetable health using a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) approach, integrating remote sensing and GIS. It is an international collaboration between EPFL, University of Lausanne, Pokot Women Empowerment Organization (POWEO), and University of Zimbabwe (UZ).
Our work focuses on rural areas of West Pokot County (Western Region of Kenya), and on Murehwa District (Zimbabwe). The Analysis is based on (1) secondary drought impact data from available governmental and NGO sources, and (2) integrated, primary data (quantitative and qualitative) for demand planning in humanitarian logistics. Productivity and food security/insecurity are assessed through remote sensing based on satellite imagery with a resolution of 30 meters. This allows to obtain (1) the Temperature Condition Index (TCI) in the targeted areas in the past 30 years, and (2) the Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) and Vegetation Health Index (VHI) in the targeted areas in the past 40 years based.
The general goal is to contribute to drought mitigation efforts by informing decision-makers on resource allocation. We propose to do so by identifying high-risk drought zones and optimising the transport model for humanitarian supply chains in the selected areas.
General information
Team: Baraka Jean-Claude Munyaka, Olivier Gallay, Jérôme Chenal
Contact: Baraka Jean-Claude Munyaka
Funding: Collaborative Research on Science and Society (CROSS, EPFL-UNIL)