Michael Budde, James Verdin, and James Rowland
USGS – FEWS NET
Sentinel-2 Agriculture User Consultation
25 April, 2012 – Frascati, Italy
U.S. Department of the Interior
U.S. Geological Survey
An activity of the Office of Food for Peace at
USAID, which directly supports its goal:
“to ensure that appropriate… emergency food aid
is provided to the right people in the right
places at the right time and in the right way”
FEWS NET is a food security decision support
system with its own climate services
CORE PARTNERS
NETWORK MEMBERS
Chemonics International (Prime Contractor)
World Food Program (WFP)
• Evidence for Development - Livelihoods
• Overseas Strategic Consulting - Web Dev.
• Action Against Hunger - Nutrition
US Geological Survey - EROS
University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
NOAA CPC, NOHRSC, ESRL
USDA FAS
NASA GSFC
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
National Government Ministries
Price/Market Information Systems
Meteorological Centers
Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)
Regional Institutions
(SADC, CILSS, COMESA, IGAD, ASEAN)
Other UN agencies (UNICEF, UNHCR)
Kimetrica
The Purpose of FEWS NET
•
To prevent famine and mitigate food insecurity by
providing decision makers with information that is
accurate, credible, timely, and actionable.
•
To strengthen the ability of FEWS NET countries and
regional organizations to provide timely early
warning and vulnerability analysis.
Convergence of Evidence
Field Assessments
Market/Price monitoring
Rainfall Forecasts
Nutrition Surveys
Conflict
Remote sensing
Convergence of
evidence
Effective
decision support
Comparable
classification of
food security
outcomes
FEWS NET
Early
Warning
Analysis
Livelihoods
based analysis
Scenario building
Consider evidence in the context of local livelihoods
Convergence of
evidence
Effective decision
support
Comparable
classification of
food security
outcomes
FEWS NET
Early
Warning
Analysis
Livelihoods
based analysis
Scenario building
Scenario Building
Convergence of
evidence
Current FS
status
Climate
Forecasts
Other Info: Trade,
Conflict, Health…
Livelihoods
Effective decision
support
Comparable
classification of
food security
outcomes
FEWS NET
Early
Warning
Analysis
Livelihoods
based analysis
Seasonal Calendars
Scenario building
National/Regional Food
Security Outcomes
Comparable Classification
East Africa Estimated food security Outcomes, Sept 2011
Convergence of
evidence
Effective decision
support
Comparable
classification of
food security
outcomes
FEWS NET
Early
Warning
Analysis
Livelihoods
based analysis
Scenario building
Effective Decision Support
Convergence of
evidence
Effective decision
support
Comparable
classification of
food security
outcomes
FEWS NET
Early
Warning
Analysis
Livelihoods
based analysis
Scenario building
• Livelihood systems are based on subsistence
agriculture and/or pastoralism, and are highly
climate-sensitive
• Conventional climate station networks are sparse
and often late reporting or don’t report at all
• Satellite remote sensing and modeling fill the gap,
and provide the basis for early detection of
agricultural drought
• Rainfall, vegetation, snow pack, actual ET, crop water
requirements are monitored for both rainfed and
irrigated crop lands as well as pastoral areas
• Observations are focused by region and seasonality
based on crop calendars
Modeled Derivatives
NDVI
RFE
Operational
Remote Sensing
LST
USGS FEWS NET Data
• Africa - 60+ products
• Afghanistan - 25+ products
• S. Central Asia - 8 products
• S. Asia - 5 products
http://earlywarning.usgs.gov/fews
• L. America / Caribbean - 12+ products
• Global - 5 products
Early Warning Explorer (EWX)
Regional interactive map viewers
Time series of eMODIS NDVI, cumulative RFE, and Dekadal RFE
RFE Anomaly
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MODIS LST
eMODIS NDVI
eMODIS Anom
User interface to dynamically compare standardized
anomalies
Framework to incorporate NASA data into routine analysis
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Multi-level time series analysis
Ability to analyze analog years
Time series data download
eMODIS (EROS MODIS) background
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Developed by the LP DAAC (USGS-EOS) at EROS in 2007
Funded by vegetation monitoring stakeholders
Expedited and Historical products for Terra and Aqua MODIS
CONUS, Alaska, C. America/Caribbean, Africa, and Central Asia
eMODIS Provides
• Ability to customize compositing periods
• Consistent and timely processing (Expedited within 12 hours
and Historical 3-5 days)
• Minimized Re-sampling
• Improved spatial resolution (i.e. 250m)
LANCE is an Earth Observing System Data and
Information System (EOSDIS) and provides near
real-time capabilities for applications, operational
agencies, and researchers. The LANCE system
supports eMODIS expedited processing through
the provision of timely surface reflectance data.
Expedited
• LANCE Level-2 Surface Reflectance
• Final eMODIS product delivered within 12 hours of acquisition
Historical
• LAADS Level-2 Surface Reflectance (ephemeris & atmosphere)
• Final eMODIS product delivered within 3-5 days of acquisition
Composite
+18 hrs
FEWS NET eMODIS NDVI and Anomaly Maps
USGS
FEWS NET
Terra MODIS
T+9hrs
Processing System
(stack, smooth, create products,
develop time series, package data for
distribution)
FEWS NET Decision Support System (USAID FFP)
EDOS
MODIS L0 Data
eMODIS System
USGS/EROS
T+3hrs
MODIS
L2 Data
LANCE
Input to Impact Assessment s
and Food Security Decision
Making
Extension of Existing Waterhole Monitoring
•
•
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Active for 41 waterholes in Kenya / Ethiopia
Website provides daily information on the status of a
waterhole relative to the median and previous year
High resolution multi-spectral imagery needed for
waterhole identification/delineation
Validation with field data captures trends
and seasonal variation successfully
Targeted Rangeland / Cropland Monitoring
Continuous monitoring of rangeland resources; focusing on critical period(s) of livestock
migration to “dry-season” grazing areas.
• Delineation of known dry-season grazing areas and
water-points.
• Identification of robust indicators and analysis
• Refined mapping of migratory patterns.
• Identification of key livestock markets & trade flows.
• Potential constraints i.e human/wildlife conflicts,
animal diseases and Govt. policies (X-border).
Focused Cropland
Assessments
Irrigated Area Mapping / Delineation
Helmand Province, Afghanistan
•
Utilizes high resolution
imagery in combination with
250m MODIS NDVI to
annually map irrigated areas
in Afghanistan.
•
Provides knowledge of
expanding or abandoned
areas under irrigation.
•
Allows for more accurate
monitoring of irrigated
agriculture conditions.
False Color Landsat Image :
May 27, 2004
Irrigated Areas 2004
Using peak NDVI threshold
The Need
Cropped Area Estimation
• Cropped area is a critical component of estimating food production in the
developing world and is often inaccurately reported .
• Independent cropped area estimates provide an unbiased assessment.
The Approach
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•
•
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High-resolution imagery allows us to “visit” a large
number of locations with no access restriction
Imagery is interpreted as crop, no-crop, and other
using a dot grid approach
Dots are attributed with external data –
geophysical and demographic
Statistical models are built - generalized additive
mixed model
Models predict cropped area for locations where
we do not have imagery
Produce country-level estimate of cropped area
High resolution image (~1 M) for Haiti with a
500 M dot grid overlain (yellow dots)
• Near real-time processing capabilities (e.g. LANCE system for
MODIS surface reflectance) - expedited data delivery is key to
being applicable as real-time monitoring tools
• Ability to streamline data delivery process - similar to the Webenabled Landsat data (WELD) Project
• Sentinel-2 data available at no cost – even low cost creates a
bottleneck in the ability to utilize the frequent revisit time for early
warning applications
• Interoperability with Landsat 8 – the ability to leverage
observations from both Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 to create
comparable products at even better frequency than either sensor
can offer is a true benefit to the earth observing community
The need for a “closer look” – as FEWS NET, we need to assess
broad-scale food security issues, but are increasingly requested to
focus our attention at finer scales - an example from S.Somalia
Worst Drought in 60 Years
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The worst drought in 60 years, on the heels of two failed
rainy seasons, had devastating impacts on the eastern
Horn of Africa in 2011 and led to a declaration of famine in
southern Somalia.
The drought conditions coupled with conflict in Somalia
created uncertainty in the state of the agricultural system
going into the short rainy season (Oct – Dec, 2011)
2010/11 rainfall compared
to historical totals since
1950/51 in select pastoral
areas of Kenya and
Ethiopia
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Together with the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU), FEWS NET monitored the
short rainy season and potential crop conditions for specific irrigated and rainfed areas on a
frequent basis, updating time series every 5 days based on eMODIS NDVI.
Extremely good rains throughout the season led to improvements in pastoral conditions and
cropped areas appeared to perform remarkably well (time series below).
However, there was still concern over whether traditionally cropped areas were actually planted
due to the likelihood of outmigration resulting from conflict.
Sentinel-2 observations with their frequent revisit schedule, fine resolution, and applicable
spectral characteristics would have been suitable to provide that “closer look”.
Thank you