The Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability (RIIS) has been appointed to host the pan-African Digital Earth Africa Program management office. The program is a free platform providing satellite imagery and products specific to Africa.
Funded by The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust and the Australian Government, Digital Earth Africa is on track to improve the lives of African people. The platform also supports decision-makers across the continent to assess, plan, and protect their countries from the potential impacts of climate change.
According to RIIS, packaging Earth observation (EO) data into accessible and free data sets enables African governments, researcher bodies, industry players, and decision-makers to track changes across Africa in detail. This enables better decision-making across areas that include flooding, drought, soil and coastal erosion, agriculture, forest cover, land use and land cover change, water availability and quality, and changes to human settlements.
The Digital Earth Africa platform is based on the ODC infrastructure, which is an open-source solution supported by six institutional partners. These are; Geoscience Australia, NASA / Committee on Earth Observations (CEOS), United States Geological Survey (USGS), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Catapult Satellite Applications and Analytical Mechanics Associates (AMA). The infrastructure enables the access, management and analysis of large quantities of geographic information system (GIS) data, namely EO data.
Commenting on the new developments, CEO at RIIS, Davis Cook, stated, “The Africa Earth Observation Challenge in particular, which is a continental wide space-tech start-up competition managed by RIIS, provides further opportunities to drive uptake of the Digital Earth Africa platform.”
Cook further noted that it is critical to develop Africa’s use of space-based tools and technologies saying, “EO data is increasingly being used by both the public and private sectors across the globe to solve social and environmental challenges, mitigate risks and aid economic growth. In providing free access to EO data and derivative products Digital Earth Africa breaks down barriers to participation and is a key enabler towards Africans actively participating in this new space economy.”