DevCoCast
Description
|
DevCoCast |
| GEONETCast for and by Developing Countries |
| Contact |
Tim Jacobs |
Start (End) Date |
01/05/2008
(30/09/2011) |
| Consortium |
15 partners |
Project Coordination |
VITO |
| Website |
http://www.devcocast.eu
(new window) |
Related Projects |
VGT4Africa, Aïda,
Geoland, MARSOP,
GMFS … |
| Keywords |
GEONETCast, developing countries, EUMETCast, GEOSS,
environmental monitoring, natural resources, Africa,
South America, Asia |
Project Objectives
Many developing countries face serious environmental risks and need accurate Earth Observation (EO) data and derived environmental information for their sustainable development.
GEONETCast provides reliable, worldwide and low cost access to such EO products. It is the core broadcasting infrastructure foreseen in the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and links together GEONETCast-Americas (NOAA), EUMETCast (EUMETSAT), CMACast (CMA) and soon also Mitra (Roshydromet). Its success has already been proven in PUMA, VGT4Africa and several other initiatives. The DevCoCast project, funded by the European Community’s 7th Framework Programme for Research (FP7), involves developing countries more closely in the GEONETCast initiative.
Many EO products, some produced in Latin America and Africa, are freely shared via GEONETCast. These products are gathered, scheduled & prioritized by land & marine add-on nodes (hubs) to the GEONETCast Networking Centre (GNC) operated by EUMETSAT and then received using simple and low cost ground reception infrastructure. The network of receivers is extended in South America, as well as for marine research and locust information services in Africa and for a pilot GEONETCast-exchange with China. More importantly, the actual use of the products by the growing user community is supported through training and building on the existing networks and capacities. This is done across continents and application themes such as vegetation and agriculture, fires and floods, water resources and ocean and weather/climate. The goal is to introduce and integrate GEONETCast and the EO products it offers into education, research, environmental monitoring and decision making processes, in support of sustainable development.
Methodology
The project has four core activities:
- Sharing EO products (some produced in Africa and South America) across the continents and even worldwide, using EUMETCast and a pilot GEONETCast data-exchange. This includes a review and harmonization of the products, aiming to simplify their use
- Extending the infrastructure with central land and ocean add-on nodes to EUMETSAT as main GEONETCast Networking Centre, set up to prioritise and schedule incoming EO products prior to sending them to EUMETSAT for broadcast. Several satellite receivers are also set up in Africa (7), South America (6) and China (1).
- Capacity building by supporting and training users through various (international) workshops, help desks, stand-alone training packages, building on existing training networks (ITC, EUMETSAT).
- Finally, building on and maintaining existing capacities and networks to integrate GEONETCast and the products it shares into everyday research, environmental monitoring and decision making.
(Expected) Results
With products on the broadcast from almost each of the ten product providers in DevCoCast, the land and marine hubs fully operational and nearly all receiving stations installed and functioning, the first two core activities are very near to completion. Several successful workshops, with more than 300 participants, have been organized using Open Source and freely available software to manage and process the data disseminated by GEONETCast. Training material is largely and freely available and being translated. The project has now reached the last and most important stage: to demonstrate the benefit and actual use of GEONETCast to the user community, across continents and for various application themes, hopefully ensuring more sustained use of GEONETCast in Africa, South America and China. The start-up of the follow-on Europe-Africa Marine Network (EAMNET, FP7) ensures continuity, further capacity building and shows the successful uptake of GEONETCast for marine applications in Africa. The new (FP7-funded) AGRICAB project, to start back-to-back with DevCoCast, further ensures continuation of use of GEONETCast data for land (agriculture, forestry) applications in Africa in the near future.
VITO Contribution
VITO is overall project coordinator, leads several work packages, represents the project on the international forums and publications and acts as both land hub and source of SPOT-VEGETATION and desert locust products (in cooperation with other projects such as Geoland2).
Partners
Contact:
Tim Jacobs
Tel. + 32 14 33 67 10
Fax + 32 14 32 27 95
Send a message to Tim Jacobs
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