Alyssa Whitcraft Gives Webinar in Light of the SICA / NASA Bilateral
On May 24, 2019, Alyssa Whitcraft (NASA Harvest Associate Director and GEOGLAM Secretariat Program Scientist), gave a webinar talk to more than 200 global attendees as part of the Central American Integration System (SICA) virtual meeting, capturing the opportunity for actionable collaboration in the region in light of the bilateral efforts of SICA and NASA ESD.
Dr. Whitcraft spoke to the work of GEOGLAM, coordinated by NASA Harvest, to provide global access to crop monitoring tools such as the GEOGLAM Crop Monitor system and the Agricultural Monitoring in the Americas (AMA) project, which facilitate the use of satellite data. With the bilateral agreement in place, NASA Harvest and GEOGLAM can build upon ongoing activities in the region, furthering the use and advancement of Earth observation data in Central America.
Central America is one of the most vulnerable agricultural regions in the world and the advances that have been made using Earth observations for agricultural monitoring under GEOGLAM and Harvest initiatives are invaluable to the area. SICA and its eight member countries (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and the Dominican Republic) will greatly benefit from their alliance with NASA ESD, which provides access to geospatial information platforms through GEOGLAM and Harvest efforts. Considering the advancement in technology for SICA member countries enabled by this bilateral relationship, Central America will have better access to geospatial knowledge to aid in informed decision making and management of natural resources.
Read more about the SICA and NASA ESD bilateral in an article published by Forbes Mexico, highlighting the exciting new connection.