Webinar Series

This component of the Space Academy includes a series of webinars covering topics related to the use of EO to assess and monitor the state of water and food security-related spatial components. Each Webinar consists of three sections: theoretical background, applications examples a Q&A session.

The selected topics for the webinars include:

Topic
1   Introduction to Cloud Computing for EO Analyses
2   Access to Earth Observation
3   Software Tools for Earth Observation analyses (SNAP, QGIS)
4   Evapotranspiration from space: methodology and products
5   Introduction to Precipitation from Space
6   Hyper-Temporal Mapping of Agro-Ecological Systems
7   Flood Mapping with Sentinel-1 data
8   fPAR as a Proxy for Yield Estimation/Forecasting
9   Global flood monitoring and Surface Soil Moisture anomalies
10   Drought Monitoring case studies in Africa
11   Surface Soil Moisture products at continental scale
12   Use of Remote Sensing to Insure against the Peril Drought
13 Integration Sentinel-1 and -2 for small water body mapping and available Copernicus products
14 Introduction to Yield Estimation and Parcel-Based Crop Monitoring

Recent webinars:

12th on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

Use of Remote Sensing to Insure against the Peril Drought


This webinar will provide insights concerning the developed EO-based insurance model that utilizes NDVI-imagery to quantitatively assess occurring agronomic droughts. As a business model, since 2018, the Vegetation Index Crop Insurance (VICI) scheme is successfully in use by various Ethiopian organizations.

VICI employs a novel NDVI data-cube analysis method to identify Crop Production System Zones for which, through the use of NDVI-imagery, by dekad, the left-extreme 15 and 5 percentile NDVI-values were identified to function as insurance trigger and exit thresholds. Accordingly, by crop season, covering more than 20 years, drought assessments were generated at a 1-km2 resolution. Noteworthy is that VICI insures farmers against exposure to drought and avoids insuring the farmers business model. Linked advantages of VICI are that it is fully scalable, is not crop specific, features reduced basis risks, and is statistically 100% sound.

At present, based on VICI, drought assessments are being produced for series of African countries. As example, an animation of past droughts in South Africa will be shown.

Knowledge regarding using Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS) supplied NDVI-imagery will be an asset, but is not a must.

The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility by ITC-UTwente.

Speakers:



Downloads and recordings:

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here:

11th on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

Surface Soil Moisture products at continental scale


The webinar will give an overview of high-resolution (1 km) satellite soil moisture data sets available at continental to global scale. These data sets are either derived by downscaling coarse resolution data from passive (SMAP, SMOS, AMSR2) and active (ASCAT) microwave sensors using optical or Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, or by deriving the soil moisture data directly from only the SAR data. The presentation will focus on the latter type of products, explaining how soil moisture data can be derived from Sentinel-1 SAR time series, and how these data might be used for monitoring rainfall and irrigation.

Knowledge of use of SAR data in Earth Observation applications is an asset but not a must.

The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility by TU Wien.

Speakers:

Downloads and recordings:

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here:

10th on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

Drought Monitoring case studies in Africa


The webinar will describe ways to monitor drought events using microwave Earth Observation data. Existing methods for the calculation of climate normals, anomalies and drought indicators will be described and demonstrated over Africa. The strength and weaknesses of the indicators and an evaluation with common drought indicators such as Standardized Precipitation Index will be discussed. Furthermore, the use of soil moisture for early season yield prediction will be discussed.

The duration of the webinar is 75 minutes, followed by a live Q&A session. During the webinar, there is a live-chat available as well.

Knowledge of use of SAR data in Earth Observation applications is an asset but not a must.

The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility by TU Wien.

Speakers:

Downloads and recordings:

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here:

9th on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

Global flood monitoring and Surface Soil Moisture anomalies


The webinar will describe ways to monitor flood events and surface soil moisture on a global scale, using microwave Earth Observation data. Current research topics will be described that are relevant for use cases in Africa (e.g. subsurface scattering in arid regions). The validation of flood monitoring and of soil moisture products will be discussed.

The duration of the webinar is 75 minutes, followed by a live Q&A session. During the webinar, there is a live-chat available as well.

Knowledge of use of SAR data in Earth Observation applications is an asset but not a must.

The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility by TU Wien.

Speakers:

Downloads and recordings:

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here:

8th on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

fPAR as a Proxy for Yield Estimation/Forecasting


The webinar provides a biological basis for crop yield estimation and within-season forecasting with Earth observation image data. We facilitate the introduction with a “big leaf” approach to light-use efficiency. Big leaf models assume canopies are homogenous and the response of the canopy to light is linear. First, we will review key concepts of photosynthesis, plant respiration, biomass accumulation, and the harvest index. Second, we will dissect the big leaf architecture to understand the biophysical and biochemical constraints on light-use efficiency, such as the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (fPAR). Third, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the big leaf approach compared to the multi-leaf (radiative transfer) approach. Finally, we will carry out a computation of crop yield with the Production Efficiency Model Optimized for Crops (PEMOC) big leaf model.

The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility by the University of Twente – Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation.

Speakers:

Downloads and recordings:

Reference papers:

  • Agricultural Systems:  Agricultural Systems

  • Field Crops Research:  Field Crops Research

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here:

7th on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

Flood Mapping with Sentinel-1 data


This webinar will focus on the importance and use of Sentinel-1 SAR data for flood mapping. With Sentinel-1 SAR data, we can map and analyse the affected flooded areas over a region, that may be not easily accessible, and even compare them with the official flood maps available.

We will also use the SNAP and QGIS software available within the Innovation Lab and have a short demonstration of the basic processing steps in order to achieve the desired result. CREODIAS will be used for the Sentinel-1 data retrieval.

The duration of the webinar is 1 hour, followed by a live Q&A session. During the webinar there is a live-chat available as well.

Knowledge of use of SAR data in Earth Observation applications would be an asset, but is not a must.

The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility by SERCO Italy S.P.A.

Speakers:

Downloads and recordings:

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here:

6th on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

Hyper-Temporal Mapping of Agro-Ecological Systems


This webinar introduces participants with the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge to map agro-ecological systems at region to country levels (benchmark mapping) for subsequent monitoring using ‘future’ EO-derived imagery. ‘Past’ hyper-temporal (HT) time-space NDVI-based data-cubes will be studied to create an agro-environmental stratification that relates to land features like terrain, climate, land cover (green vegetation) and land use (practiced crop calendars). The data-cube also represents (seasonal) impacts of weather differences on vegetation performance and also gradual and abrupt changes in land use and land cover. Acquisition and pre-processing of the HT-vegetation (NDVI) data sets, and its visualization, interpretation and analysis will be discussed.

The duration of the webinar is 1.5 hours. During the webinar there is a live-chat available.

The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility by the University of Twente – Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation.

Speakers:

Downloads and recordings:

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here:

5th on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

Introduction to Precipitation from Space


This webinar introduces rainfall observations obtained from satellites using the visible, thermal infrared and microwave parts of the electromagnetic spectrum and blending routines applied, using qualitative and quantitative approaches. Quantitative precipitation retrieval principles and algorithms are discussed as well as their possibilities and limitations to retrieve rainfall observations. Also, attention is given to visualization of precipitation from geostationary satellite images. A number of satellite derived rainfall products will be introduced.

During the webinar short demos are provided on how to acquire near real time rainfall products from geostationary satellites from EUMETSAT’s Web Mapping Service, use of (online) rainfall forecasts from the Global Forecasting System (GFS), perform calculations with satellite derived daily rainfall data from the SAF on Hydrology (H05B product) and rainfall retrieval from thermal infrared channel observations (from the SEVIRI instrument on MSG). These will be compared with other satellite derived rainfall products, like IMERG and H03B.

The duration of the webinar is 1 hour. During the webinar, there is a live chat available.

The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility by the University of Twente – Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation.

Speakers:

Downloads and recordings:

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here:

4th on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

Evapotranspiration from space


This webinar is devoted to evapotranspiration (ET) monitoring with Earth Observation (EO) satellites.

The webinar is going to have four parts:

  • During the first 20 minutes, the concept of ET and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Penman (1948) – Monteith (1965) approach to its modelling will be explained.

  • Then in 10 minutes the demonstration of a large scale FAO ET dataset WaPOR https://wapor.apps.fao.org/home/WAPOR_2/1 will take place.

  • In the last 30 minutes, a local scale Two-Source Energy Balance (TSEB, Norman, Kustas and Humes, 1995) model will be explained followed by its Sentinel Application Platform (SNAP) plugin realization (Sen-ET) demonstration. The sharpening of Sentinel-3 1 km Land Surface Temperature (LST) to Sentinel-2 20 m resolution is the key feature of the approach.

  • If time permits an ESA’s Third Party Missions Programme Landsat-based approach will be demonstrated.

Questions in between the sections and at the end of the webinar are most welcome.

The duration of the webinar is 1 hour. During the webinar, there is a live chat available.

Required: For participants who would like to reproduce the actions of the presenter, the registration on WaPOR FAO portal https://wapor.apps.fao.org/sign-in is needed.

Optional: For participants who would like to use the Sen-ET plugin (https://www.esa-sen4et.org/) in their research, a Windows-based ESA SNAP installation with configured Python 3.6 is needed. The setting-up issues might be tackled during the QA session. An alternative to SNAP is a Python-based version of TSEB, PyTSEB, which implies some knowledge of Python.

The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility by the University of Twente – Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation.

Speakers:

Downloads and recordings:

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here:

3rd on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

Software Tools for Earth Observation analyses


This webinar provides an overview of existing open-source tools for processing data coming from different satellite missions with a main focus on Copernicus missions’ products. During the webinar participants get familiar with ESA SNAP software and its toolboxes. Then a short demonstration of QGIS plugins used in Earth Observation is provided. Moreover, Sen2Agri system applicable especially in agriculture monitoring using both Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 data is introduced as well. For those who prefer working in Python or R, the selection of plugins, specific for Earth Observation and image processing is demonstrated.

The duration of the webinar is 1 hour. During the webinar there is a live-chat available.

Knowledge of different data used in Earth Observation would be an asset, but is not a must.

The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility by the University of Twente – Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation.

Speakers:

Downloads and recordings:

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here:

2nd on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

Access to Earth Observation


The webinar aims to present which Earth Observation datasets are accessible via Data and Information Access Services (DIAS) platforms, and demonstrate how such imagery can be queried, selected and downloaded. For this purpose, a direct-download solution from a data provider will be demonstrated, followed by a free open-source solution (EODAG), and related python libraries.

The duration of the webinar is 1.5 hours. During the webinar there will be a live-chat available.

Participant should be acquainted with remote sensing data and basic python scripting.

The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D by CS GROUP France.

Speakers:

Downloads and recordings:

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here:

1st on the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series

Introduction to Cloud Computing for EO Analyses

This webinar introduces Cloud Computing and its usage to analyse and process Earth Observation (EO) data. It also explains the topic of interactive computing through Jupyter Notebooks and JupyterLab as one of the technologies that have been used over Cloud Computing platforms for developing analytical procedures accompanied with narrative text, equations, images, and analysis outputs.

The duration of the webinar is 1 hour. During the webinar there is a live-chat available.

Basic python scripting is appreciated but not essential.

Webinar is executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D by the University of Twente – Faculty of Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation.

Speakers:

Downloads and recordings:

The Jupyter notebook for the demo can be downloaded here.

You can find the recording of the webinar in our YouTube Channel or you can watch it here: