Applications of Space Technology in Sudan

by:

Dr. Amna A. Hamid and Dr. Yahya H. Eltayeb

amnaah71@gmail.com, yahyaeltayeb@yahoo.com

Remote Sensing and Seismology Authority

National Center for research Ministry of science and communications

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Applications of Space Technology in Sudan Abstract:

Sudan, as a developing country, recognized the importance of space sciences and space applications and developed a strategy that focuses on human and institutional capacity building in three major fields: Remote Sensing and GIS Applications, Meteorological Forecasting, and Satellite Communication.

This report shows the importance of space technology to Sudan, and the steps that were taken for capacity building in space technology (Remote Sensing, GPS and GIS Applications). The report includes examples that focus on applications of land cover in the fields of food security, land degradation assessment and disaster management, mainly floods. The report highlights the international cooperation in the different applications.

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Introduction The importance of space technology to Sudan Sudan area is 1.949 million square kilometers. Sudan population is about 32 millions. Annual rainfall amount exceeds 250 mm in Khartoum and it is

below 100 mm in the extreme north. Three major types of agricultural systems are practiced in

Sudan: (1) Irrigated agriculture, (2) Mechanized rain-fed agriculture, and (3) Traditional rain-fed agriculture. (Both 2 & 3 are frequently affected by drought).

Sudan has one of the largest livestock population in Africa,

including camels, cattle, sheep, and goats, which depends mostly on the natural rangelands.

Rain-fed agriculture and animal breeding are the dominant systems of food production.

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Sudan Location Map

SUDAN CLIMATIC ZONES

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Introduction, cont’d.

Food security is one of the main challenges in most areas

The status of food security in Sudan is highly affected by its environment and the related environmental problems which, in some cases, reach the stage of disaster.

Most of the disasters experienced by the Sudan are of ecological nature such as droughts, floods, desertification, pest and locust attacks,…etc.

Drought is one of the major environmental problems that negatively impact food security.

Over 80% of the 32 million Sudan's population lives in rural areas, and depends on agriculture and livestock.

The total area considered as drought prone is about 69,000 sq Km and this area produces 90% of the cultivated food crops and 85% of fire wood.

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Sudan realized the importance of space sciences and space applications and developed a strategy that focuses on human and institutional capacity building in three major fields: Remote Sensing and GIS Applications, Meteorological Forecasting, and Satellite Communication.

Steps that are taken for capacity building in space technology (Remote Sensing, GPS and GIS Applications:

Sudan efforts related to space technology

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• Establishing the National Remote Sensing Center in the late 1970’s which was renamed in 1996 as Remote Sensing Authority (RSA).

• The mandate of RSA is to set space technology policies, conduct research, studies, and undertake capacity building.

• In 2013, RSA was renamed “Remote Sensing and Seismology Authority (RSSA)” with additional research activities in seismology as a part of its mandate.

• RSSA is involved in programs and activities that include project studies, human capacity building and awareness raising.

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RSA programs are oriented towards sustainable development. In order to achieve such a goal, a set of programs for human and institutional capacity building was structured. These programs aim at: Building and developing the knowledge and capacity in the field of remote sensing and geographic information systems and showing how to deal with their different aspects through training and awareness raising programs. • RSSA provides services that include: Project Formulation,

Image Processing,, GIS Software Handling, Database Management, Mapping and GPS Applications.

• RSSA is involved in the establishment of RS/GIS units within some of the governmental institutes.

• RSSA provides specifications, technical know–how and supervision of RS and GIS Applications.

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Training and Education program: Short training program, targeting professionals from

different fields. Training program tailored for the teaching assistants within

the universities. Special training Modules (remote sensing/GIS training

course) An Advanced Training Course, designed to suit well-

experienced professional. Long- term training program: M.Sc and Phd. program. Awareness raising: The awareness program includes numbers of local seminars, workshops, besides the international workshops and conferences.

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Capacity Building - Sinnar State training course, Oct. 2014

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Capacity building- Sinnar State – GPS training, Oct. 2014

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Relevance of remote sensing data to Sudan

Remote sensing potentiality in providing time series data could be fully utilized to enhance or create new environmental datasets, because RS provides:

1. Wide area coverage to give a general overview;

2. High resolution data to give details and helps in immediate interventions;

3. Recent coverage to assess the current situation;

4. Temporal coverage to provide data regularly;

5. Easy to draw information from satellite data; and

6. Archives and Live data (image) for future uses.

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Examples of applications • The Remote Sensing and Seismology Authority (RSSA) is

responsible for establishing and maintaining natural resources geo-databases based on remote sensing data analysis and aided by field observations.

• RSSA is also in charge of land cover mapping / land use change detection, focusing mainly on trends, impacts and consequences of the changes.

• RSSA uses digital geo- referenced Sudan land cover databases, and other EO data for early warning of potential agricultural problems, forests, rangelands and disaster prevention and management, …..etc

Some examples of Sudan land cover applications for Food security, Land degradation and Disaster and risk assessment are presented below:

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Sudan land Cover (LC)

Land cover is the easiest detectable indicator of human interventions on the land, and hence it is a critical element in natural resources management.

Remote Sensing and Seismology Authority (RSSA) of Sudan in collaboration with FAO SIFSIA project, and the ministry of Agriculture, produced a multipurpose Sudan land cover database 2003 and 2011.

Sudan LC production was based on medium resolution remote sensing data from Landsat, SPOT, IRS and ASTER data in addition to field surveys.

The land cover information was used intensively as a base for food security status assessment in Sudan.

It is well known that the availability and accessibility of the resources could easily be assessed through land cover and land use analysis.

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Sudan land Cover, cont’d.

Sudan land cover database 2011, comprises 500,000 polygons, classified according to LCCS to 83 land cover single classes. The 83 original land cover classes were aggregated into 7 generalized and simple classes covering both terrestrial and aquatic/regularly flooded land. The distribution and area coverage of Sudan main land cover classes is described below and depicted in fig. (4).

The whole agricultural land in Sudan, including rainfed and irrigated crops, is 23,710,025 hectares which cover 12.5% of the total area of the country.

Bare rocks and soils and other unconsolidated materials cover 50.7 % of the total area of Sudan i.e. 95,277,727 ha.

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Sudan landcover update project – Gadarif State, Field survey, 2011, GPS point coordinate reading

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18 National Land Cover

Gadarif State is one of the main states in crop production using the mechanized rain fed system. Through land cover mapping, a reasonable level of crop area measurement and stratification for statistical crop production estimation was easily achieved.

The total area under agriculture is 3,450,932 hectares

19 El Gadarif Land Cover

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The rainfall of September 2012 and its impact on crops were depicted by MODIS data. When overlaying the layer of rainfall extent on the land cover map of the same area, the affected crops (which were classified as a loss) were identified and their adverse effect on the harvest could be estimated. Sound measures and actions can be easily taken, based on such information.

El Gadarif Rainfall and Land Cover

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NDVI Mean Yield

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Land cover for Land degradation Assessment

Sand encroachment is an environmental factor that impacted negatively the irrigated sector which was considered to be of a stable production.

Some of the productive schemes such as Elseliem (in the Northern State faced a very serious condition of desertification and a complete loss of more than 80% of the project area is reported. The project is affected by dunes and sand encroachment. At present the fertile soil is buried under large sand dunes.

Some of the irrigated projects in central Sudan such as El Thamied (GAZIRA) faced the same problem.

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A study, carried out in

2009, indicated that the

range of the rate of sand

dune advance was 6-23

m/year in Dongola area,

Northern State.

The LC change analysis

mainly in wadi Elseliem

revealed that a large area

(estimated at 86% of the

total project’s area), which

was once under cultivation,

is now abandoned due to

sand encroachment,, hence

food shortage is likely to

appear.

Sand dunes advance in Northern State

El Thamied, the largest and last section in ELGazira scheme. Most of the population in this area are farmers.

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Since 2001, sand encroachment has extremely affected this part of El Gazira scheme. This encroaching dunes have their negative impact on food security. Land cover data can be utilized for management.

Sand dunes advance in ELGazira scheme

2001 2005

L C for Disaster and risk assessment

The major environmental problems that cause disasters in Sudan are floods, droughts and desertification.

Floods:

Both river flood and flash floods, their impacts include loss of lives and properties. They cause damage to natural resources, especially to soils and vegetation along the Nile bank and its tributaries, deterioration of health situation with increasing incidences of malaria and water-borne diseases as well as disruption of social services.

Following are cases of Sudan flash flood 2013:

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Different satellites provided recent and up-to-date information on flood status

Formosat 8/8/2013 Formosat 9/8/2013

ASTER 13/8/2013 MODIS 4/8/2013

EO 13/8/2013

Radarsat2 4/8/2013

Green color is the Data produced from Radarsat2

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Temporal coverage to provide data regularly Daily acquisition by MODIS

24/7/2013 25/7/2013 26/7/2013 27/7/2013 30/7/2013 31/7/2013 01/8/2013

02/8/2013 03/8/2013 04/8/2013 05/8/2013 06/8/2013 07/8/2013 08/8/2013

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Some photos showing part of the damage, 2013

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Flood zone levels and the related risk

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1

1

2

2 3

3

3 2

1st level, high risk, mainly from the river Nile. 2nd level, high risk, mainly from the Valleys, 3rd level, rarely it is affected by the Valleys.

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Residential

Agricultural

Approximately 80% of the residential and agricultural parcels of the Eastern Nile locality are located within the flood zone

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Dated: August, 8, 2013 Formosat image Khartoum State - Sudan

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Formosat image

This part of the Journalists’ City has been established inside the valley

The Green Valley has caused major damages of each of the Journalists’, Idd Babiker Cities and some other agric. areas. As seen in the image, there is no dam across the valley, and some part of the Journalists’ City has been established inside the Valley.

Destructive effect of ‘Ailafoon Road

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Suitable Canal route selected by the model

A case study of drought monitoring in the Nile River State - Sudan

The following 4 slides show how drought has been monitored through the classification of Landsat 7 images (ETM+) and comparison of the areas covered by vegetation, and bareland.

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Classified

image 2000

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Vegetation represents 23% of the study area in 2000

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Classified image 2005

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Bilateral Agreements At country level RSSA has signed agreements with:

1.The Geological Research Authority of Sudan

2.Ministry of Urban Planning Khartoum State

in addition to high level of cooperation with the following institutes:

1. Ministry of Agriculture;

2. Ministry of Interior Affairs (Civil Defence);

3. Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources;

4. Ministry of Environment ( HCENR, SNSA, SMA);

5. U of K Institutes IES and DADACS; and

6. U of K , Engineering Survey, Geography, Geology, Soil and Environment, Forest and the same with Sudan University.

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Bilateral cooperation At regional and international level RSSA has a signed agreement with:

1. General Organization of Remote Sensing of Syria (GORS).

2. Inter Islamic Network on Space Science and Technology (ISNET).

3. Pakistan Space and Upper Atmospheric Research Commission (SUPARCO).

4. Member of the Regional Center for Space Science and Technology Education For Western- Asia, Affiliated to the United Nation- Amman-Jordan

5. Member of the Arab Association of Remote Sensing Centers

6. Focal Point for UNOOSA programs in Space Technology

7. Focal Point for UN-SPIDER programs;

8. MOU with the National Disaster Reduction Center of China (NDRCC)

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Awareness : Regional Workshop 2004

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Awareness : International Workshop 2005

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ARSA Meeting 2010 in Khartoum

FAO LC Activities 2011-2012 44

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UN-SPIDER TAM IN SUDAN 2011

UN-SPIDER TAM IN SUDAN 2013

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