FG adopts use of satellite data to mitigate flooding

The Federal Government has adopted the use of satellite earth observation data to enhance its flood monitoring and environmental management efforts in the country.

The Director General of the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA), Engr. Clement Nze, gave this indication in his speech during the opening session of a two-day workshop on the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security and Africa (GMES and Africa), in Abuja.

Nze noted that the Centre for Space Science and Technology Education (CSSTE) Consortium under the GMES and Africa Support Programme organized the online regional training on Sentinel 1, 2 and 3 Data, in line with the “identified training needs of stakeholders and organizations around West Africa with a view to enhancing their capacity in delivering their respective institutional mandate.”

According to him, the GMES and Africa Support Programme is a joint initiative of the Africa Union (AU) and European Union (EU) aimed at providing accurate, timely and easily accessible information to improve the management of the environment.

He said that the programme is also meant to understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure civil security.

Nze said: “This training programme will focus on building capacity on the acquisition and use of Sentinel 1, 2, & 3 data: Processing and Application.

“Processing chain of Sentinel data to services including modelling, damage assessment and forecast services.

“It is pertinent to note that capacity building that was identified as one of the major pillars of the GMES and Africa support programme has led the CSSTE consortium to identify strategic training needs of its collaborating stakeholders on the Multi-Scale Flood Monitoring and Assessment Services for West Africa (MIFMASS) project.

“Hence the need to train and empower stakeholders to sustain the benefits from the programme’s product and services.”

He added that the online workshop was primarily to equip the participants to understand and undergo detailed hands-on training on Copernicus data.

The Director General of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency NiMET, Professor Sani Mashi, in his goodwill message at the event, noted that the capacity building initiative was timely especially with the increasing incidence of flash and riverine flooding across the West African Sub-region in recent years.

Mashi said: “During the last decades, the trend in flood damages has been growing exponentially.

“Improved capacity to forecast, monitor and assess floods using Earth Observation Data is therefore an essential element in regional and national strategies to mitigate this annual event.

“Sustainable economic and social development requires that flood forecasting and warning systems for communities at risk, be continuously developed, which in turn demands an optimal combination of data, forecasting tools and well-trained specialists.

“A flood forecast system must also provide sufficient lead time for communities to respond.

“I am confident that training of this nature will provide the useful skills and knowledge to all the trainees for planning to establish such forecasting system.”

The leader of CSSTE Consortium, Dr. Ganiyu Agbaje, told reporters that the Nigerian satellites in orbit have the capacity to provide needed earth observation data to support efforts aimed at predicting and checkmating the adverse effects of flooding and other natural disasters by relevant government agencies.