NASA Partnership Sends Earth Science Data To Africa
WASHINGTON -- A unique partnership between NASA and agencies in Africa and Europe has sent more than 30 terabytes of free Earth science satellite data to South African researchers to support sustainable development and environmental applications in Africa.The data from one of the instruments on NASA's Terra satellite provide observations of Africa's surface and atmosphere, including vegetation structure, airborne pollution particles, cloud heights and winds.
it broadly accessible to African users who have not been able to
remotely download the large data files because of limitations in the
continent's Internet infrastructure.
The data are from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) on
Terra. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., built
and manages the instrument, and NASA's Langley Research Center in
Hampton, Va., processes, archives, and distributes the data.
MISR has been making continuous measurements of Earth's surface and
atmosphere for more than a decade. MISR observes the sunlit portion
of Earth continuously, viewing the entire globe between 82 degrees
north and 82 degrees south latitude every nine days. Instead of
viewing Earth from a single perspective, the instrument collects
images from nine widely spaced view angles.
"NASA is committed to helping governments, organizations and
researchers around the world make effective use of Earth observation
data to aid in environmental decision making," said Hal Maring, a
program manager in the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission
Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These efforts
support the goals of the Group on Earth Observations, a partnership
of international agencies that promotes collaborative use of Earth science data."
South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)
in Pretoria will distribute the data at no charge to the research
community in the region. CSIR will facilitate access to the large
volume of MISR data as part of its broad strategy of educating,
training and transferring knowledge to the southern African research community.
"The data transfer can be seen as a birthday present from NASA to the
newly-formed South African National Space Agency," said Bob Scholes,
CSIR research group leader for ecosystem processes and dynamics. "It
will kick-start a new generation of high-quality land surface
products, with applications in climate change and avoiding
desertification." Desertification is the gradual transformation of
habitable land into desert due to climate change or destructive land use practices.
The partnership began in spring 2008, when MISR science team member
Michel Verstraete of the European Commission Joint Research Centre
Institute for Environment and Sustainability (JRC-IES) in Ispra,
Italy, participated in an intensive CSIR field campaign to study the
environment around Kruger National Park, a major wildlife reserve in
South Africa. The researchers studied the area using direct, airborne
and space-based measurements. During the campaign, Verstraete learned
of the widespread interest by the South African research community in
remote-sensing techniques and applications.
In response, JRC-IES and CSIR signed an agreement in July 2008 to
facilitate the interaction and exchange of people, knowledge, data and software.
NASA became involved in the collaboration in 2009 after a training
workshop for MISR users in Cape Town, South Africa, organized by the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Langley Research Center. Although the
workshop sparked interest in the potential use of MISR data, it soon
became apparent that accessing a large volume of data was a major
hurdle for research and applications in developing countries in
general and Africa in particular. While Internet connectivity in
Africa has improved greatly in recent years, access and bandwidth
remain too limited to support downloading vast data files. This led
CSIR to host the data directly.
NASA shipped most of the data on high-density tapes this summer. The
agencies will ensure the database stays updated with current MISR
observations by upgrading connectivity and facilitating sharing of
data among participating academic and research institutions.
"This multi-party collaboration will significantly strengthen academic
and research institutions in southern Africa and support sustainable
development of the entire subcontinent," said Verstraete, who will
spend six months in southern Africa next year to help the regional
remote-sensing community use the data.
For more information about MISR, visit:
http://misr.jpl.nasa.gov
Source: NASA
