NASA Helps Sahel Farmers Fight Climate Change
- Tereza Pultarova
- Aug 4, 2016
- 1 min read
The US space agency Nasa has launched a project designed to help West African farmers improve their modest yields despite the worsening effects of the climate change.
The project, named SERVIR, after the Spanish word for ‘to serve’, takes advantage of Earth observation data captured by the space agency’s satellites. It plans to stream the data to the farmers in order to enable accurate forecasting of environmental conditions and upcoming weather disasters such as floods or droughts.
"There is an immediate need to connect available science and technology to development solutions in West Africa," said Alex Deprez, director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which co-funds the project.
The project, head-quartered from Niger’s capital Niamey, will cover the Sahel states of Burkina Faso, Ghana, Senegal and Niger. The Sahel region, a belt of rather arid land located where the Sahara desert meets the milder Sudanian Savanna, is extremely prone to adverse effects of the climate change.
NASA
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