NASA Harvest Hosts Delegation from Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation
A delegation of five visitors from the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Agricultural Research Center and the Climate Change Information Center met with Chris Justice, Xiaopeng Song and graduate students Walid Ouaret and Sheila Baber to exchange information on the NASA Harvest, GLAD and the NASA Acres Programs.
Dr. Xiaopeng Song presented his GLAD research results on mapping changes in global cropland using NASA’s Landsat data; the use of Planet data to monitor Chinese agriculture; and the impact of civil war on Syrian agriculture. Chris Justice presented on GEOGLAM, NASA Harvest, NASA ACRES and the international GOFC-GOLD Regional Networks.
Dr. Alaa Khalil from the Early Warning Unit of the Climate Change information Center and Renewable Energy-Agriculture Research Center presented on the impact of extreme events and climate change on Egyptian agriculture. Since 1991, Egypt has experienced the hottest 10 years on record. He documented the impacts that heat waves, cold waves and the flooding most from recent tropical storm Daniel are having on agricultural production.
He showed results from a study that with 50 centimeters of sea level rise will submerge 1,800km of land and affect 4 million people and discussed the impacts of saltwater intrusion. He outlined a number of adaptation strategies in the context of the National Adaptation Plan. The delegates described the current capability of the national Early Warning Unit and their Information System for Integrated Farm Management.
They expressed an interest to increase the use of Earth Observation and to explore some of the tools and datasets available for agricultural applications. Areas of interest for collaboration included crop condition monitoring, crop type mapping and crop production forecasting, insect infestations, irrigation management and farmers advisory.
