Environmental Information from Satellites in
Support of Development Aid
Development Aid is a complex international
system covering a range of financial aid
mechanisms (loans, grants) originating from
mostly Western industrialised countries to
support the economic, environmental, social and
political development of developing countries.
About 80–85% of developmental aid comes from
government sources such as Official Development
Assistance (ODA), with the remaining 15–20%
coming from the private sector, such as
Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs),
foundations and other development charities. As
an indication of the overall economic size of
this activity, the total net ODA volume in 2016
was around US$143 billion, up 8.9% on 2015
figures.
11.1 Background and context
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development is an action plan to take the bold and
transformative steps that are urgently needed to
shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient
path. On 1 January 2016, the 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda
officially came into force. These SDGs were
adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at an
historic UN Summit and will drive development aid
priorities over the next few decades. A
comprehensive governance process is in place
within the UN framework to guide implementation of
the 2030 Agenda, including the High-level
Political Forum, the UN Statistical Commission
(UNSC), the UN initiative on Global Geospatial
Information Management (UN-GGIM), and many UN
specialised agencies allocated as custodians of
individual SDGs.
Many significant
developments and changes are taking place in Earth
observation (EO) that are bringing this technology
from scientific use to a level where it can be
used as an operational source of environmental
information in a wide range of (non-specialist)
domains. In addition, political, public and
scientific interest is growing to make better
environmental decision-making through the use of
EO to address the grand societal challenges that
the world is increasingly facing, many of which
are linked to initiatives supported by the Group
on Earth Observations (GEO).
Over the
last decade, several space agencies have started
individual initiatives to demonstrate the
capabilities and use of EO in the field of
development aid with varied stakeholders. These
include the International Financing Institutions
(IFIs), Multi-lateral Development Banks (MDBs),
national aid ministries/departments, NGOs and a
range of local government organisations in those
developing countries that are the aid recipients.
Such initiatives include NASA’s SERVIR program,
based on a high-level partnership between NASA and
USAid, and JAXA’s (Japan) active support and
engagement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Since 2010, ESA has been collaborating on the use
of EO-derived information together with leading
IFIs, in particular in partnership with the World
Bank (WB), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the
International Fund for Agricultural Development
(IFAD) and the ADB.
11.2 ESA initiatives
ESA has sought to demonstrate the
benefits (both quantitative and qualitative)
that EO can deliver in wide range of individual
development aid projects implemented by the
IFIs. EO can provide key environmental
information (e.g., land, marine, atmosphere) to
support the planning, implementation and
monitoring of these projects in the IFI lending
operations, many of which are large
infrastructure investments. This information is
tailored to the specific project requirements
defined through close dialogue with the Bank
project managers and, as such, is produced by
specialist EO service providers (e.g., SMEs in
Europe). For more details, see:
www.worldbank.org/earthobservation.
These initial experiences have
raised interest within the IFIs to explore a
longer-term, more strategic approach to the
integration of EO in their activities. For
example, both the WB and ADB have signed
strategic Memoranda of Intent (MoI) with ESA to
collaborate more closely in ten priority
thematic areas: Urban Development, Marine
Resources & Coastal Environment, Agriculture &
Rural Development, Disaster Risk Reduction,
Energy & Extractives, Water Resources
Management, Forest Management, Ecosystems
Services, Fragile & Conflict States, and Climate
Resilience & Proofing.
ESA’s Earth
Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD:
eo4sd.esa.int) initiative seeks to scale up the
level of activity in each of these thematic
areas by carrying out regional demonstrations
over a 3-year period in two or three key regions
around the world and two or three countries in
each region. An important element will be
building technical capacity within the
government agencies of the countries involved,
such that the environmental information derived
from satellites can be effectively used in the
local operations with a view to their long-term,
sustainable usage. In 2016, ESA started
larger-scale activities in three thematic
domains (Urban Development, Agriculture and
Rural Development, Water Resources Management),
and has begun work in the remaining areas as of
2018. Requirements for information are being
strongly driven by the relevant Bank teams,
primarily within the WB, ADB, and IFAD (Figure
1).
Figure 1: Geographic distributions for the
Areas of Interest (AoIs) addressed in the
on-going ESA activities in Urban Development,
Water Resources Management, and Agriculture &
Rural Development.
11.3 Urban development
Efforts by governments and
international development agencies to effectively
ensure that urbanisation in developing countries
takes place in a sustainable, equitable and
inclusive manner are often hindered by lack of
data. While it has been established that urban
areas across the developing world are expanding
rapidly, very often relatively little is known
about the ways in which they develop in terms of
spatial growth, pattern and associated population
density.
Addressing the socioeconomic
challenges in urban areas, including the
uncontrolled formation of informal settlements,
requires up-to-date and accurate spatial
information. This includes information on the
distribution and expansion of urban land and
qualitative changes in land use. In this context,
satellite data have significant potential to
deliver un-biased urban-related information at
global, regional and local scales.
Discussions with the IFIs have
identified several priority requirements for
information to support urbanisation programmes.
These requirements can also be illustrated and
structured adequately using the World Bank Group’s
‘plan–connect–finance’ framework developed for
sustainable urbanisation. The requirements
translate into a portfolio of EO products, the
details of which can be found at
eo4sd.esa.int/urban.
An example is in
support of the Kolkata Environmental Improvement
Investment Program, implemented by the ADB. This
focuses on water supply and sewerage to the
municipality, with the main stakeholder being the
Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and also
including the Kolkata Metropolitan Development
Authority (KMDA) representing 19 municipalities
and various state-level administrations.
In line with the Millennium Development
Goals followed by India, in June 2015 the government
launched three major urban development initiatives,
handled by the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD),
in addition to several other programs such as the
National Urban Information System (NUIS) initiated
in October 2014. In this context, the KMC leads
different projects for improving land-use management
and urban planning in a sustainable manner.
In Figure 2, the top panel shows the
Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) product for Kolkata.
The classification is based on the European
Commission’s Urban Atlas nomenclature. For the core
urban area, the LULC product used very high
resolution (0.5m) Pleiades-1A/1B satellite imagery
from the period 7–15 February 2017. The peri-urban
areas were classified using Sentinel-2A (10m
resolution) data, acquired on 16 March 2017, also
shown as the background image. The bottom panel
shows an extract of the informal settlements class,
delineated via visual interpretation, based mainly
on attributes of compactness, patch size and
building density.
According to Neeta
Pokhrel, Senior Urban Development Specialist working
in the Kolkata programme, the EO4SD-Urban products
can be very helpful for the KMC and other
stakeholders for in-depth analysis of the city, both
as mapping products and derived geo-statistical
indicators. They can contribute to land-use planning
(e.g., with precise mapping of informal
settlements), better handling of disaster management
and supplementing climate resilience assessments.
In support of a similar ADB program,
EO-based mapping products were delivered over a
number of urban areas in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Basin.
The ADB project officer (Sameer Kamal, Urban
Development Specialist) explains that the overall
goal of the program is to support the government of
Cambodia in improving urban services and enhanced
climate resilience in participating towns. The
program is part of ADB’s sequential, programmatic
engagement in Cambodia’s urban sector. The EO
products are being used for both on-going and
upcoming ADB projects to (i) inform urban land use
and master planning, (ii) support the feasibility
studies and detailed designs for specific
subprojects, and (iii) prepare assessments of
climate vulnerability, risk and adaptation to
climate change.
Comprehensive monitoring of water
bodies is essential for national water resources
management in support of activities such as
drought mitigation, irrigation management and
planning of infrastructure investment (e.g. dam
constructions). Information on the seasonal
dynamics of small water bodies is a high priority
requirement for river basin organizations such as
the Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM) and
its riparian member states (Angola, Botswana,
Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and
Zimbabwe). It is also important for reporting on
the efficiency of water use for crop production
(SDG Target 6.4).
The government’s
measurement of water resources in the Zambezi
region is limited to major dam resources and river
flow stations, representing only a small portion
of the overall water resources in the Zambezi
countries where substantial amounts of water can
be stored privately (e.g., in farm dams). These
un-monitored water resources represent a
significant gap in information and can contribute
substantially to inaccuracies in water resource
assessments, thereby increasing supply risk for
users dependent on these resources. Assessing the
dynamics of the complete set of water resources
using regular and systematic EO data over the
course of the season provides an efficient tool
for planning, decision-making and supply risk
reduction.
This information is being
actively used in the context of the World Bank’s
Zambezi River Basin Management Project, the
objective of which is to strengthen ZAMCOM’s role
in promoting cooperative management and
development within the Zambezi river basin.
Initial financing comes from a multi-donor trust
fund (MDTF) for Cooperation in International
Waters in Africa (CIWA) for the coming three
years. The longer-term plan is to have this
complemented by other funding sources for a
pipeline of development projects to be implemented
over a 10–15 year period.
11.5 Agriculture and rural development
In Morocco, IFAD supports the
implementation of the Green Morocco Plan in
mountainous areas through the Atlas Mountains
Rural Development Project (PDRMA). Agriculture is
a strategic sector within this Project both
economically and socially. Food supply depends
mainly on rainfall with large inter-annual
variations, with only 20% of the croplands
irrigated and limited weather risk mitigation and
crop improvement opportunities available.
The PDRMA aims to reduce poverty in
areas of the Atlas Mountains and increase
agricultural production in three provinces of
Ouarzazate, Tinghir and Béni Mellal. To understand
the connections between rural communities and
markets, and to answer key development questions in
relation to IFAD activities, a holistic view of the
mountainous regions is necessary. Questions include:
How well are the agricultural areas connected to
markets? Have bare lands been transformed for
agriculture? Can degradation in rangelands be
halted? Which areas are most prone to soil erosion?
How does the Green Morocco Plan impact the
environment?
EO offers the opportunity
to assess the status of natural and agricultural
resources, focusing on evolution over time, land
regeneration and assessment of improved natural
resources management and conservation, contributing
to more sustainable income sources for local
populations. Land cover assessment enables
monitoring of the location, changes and expansion in
agricultural areas, for example the planting of
fruit trees that is financed through PDRMA. It
enables monitoring of changes in the rangelands that
stabilise erosion-prone slopes and feed ruminant
livestock and the identification of degraded or
degradation-prone areas that can become target
priorities for land management investment. Soil
erosion along rivers and the loss of productive
capacity (degradation, overgrazing) of rangelands
are the two main issues facing agriculture in PDRMA
areas.
Long-term time series of
vegetation trends provide insights into historic
evolution to highlight areas with significant
negative trends. Soil erosion maps will combine
information about the actual land cover with
terrain, soil and rainfall information, indicating
areas that are prone to water-based soil erosion, as
well as those impacted by drought conditions and/or
susceptible to drought. This provides baseline
information and serves as a tool for identifying the
most needed intervention areas.
IFAD is
increasingly committed to better serving its
stakeholder groups and demonstrating results; tools
like remote sensing can make a significant
contribution in this area. For example, during
project preparation, there is a need to understand
the socio-economic and biophysical baselines, as
well as issues that drive environmental and social
vulnerability. During results monitoring and impact
verification, IFAD strives to improve Monitoring and
Evaluation (M&E) methodologies with reliable,
consistent and coherent information.
Figure 3: ZRBMP: Water Frequency (June 2016 -
May 2017). Seasonal water body dynamics
derived from 12-day Sentinel-1 time series in
the Zambezi basin. Source: Contains
modified Copernicus Sentinel data
11.6 Benefits that EO can deliver to
development aid operations
Through this work, a number of
benefits that EO can bring to development
operations are beginning to emerge including:
− Increased efficiencies in existing
operations through better use of resources
(economic, manpower, time) with a globally
consistent approach to implementation and
monitoring activities, thereby reducing
supervision costs;
− Improved
definition of future operations through more
informed development planning and methodologies,
leading to better technical quality of projects
and higher engagement of Client States;
− Extended capabilities by
supporting policy formulation to allow environmental
analysis in a way that is not possible by other
means (e.g. impact of climate change); and
− Promoting better transparency,
responsibility and accountability and impact
evaluation through the use of open data.
The perceived potential for EO to
support development activities is reflected in the
following feedback received from some of the senior
IFI partners involved in the ESA activities to date.
Figure 4: Detailed land cover/use mapping for
2016 in the Ouarzazate region (Morocco) based
on Sentinel-2 imagery. Credit: EO4SD
Agriculture Cluster. Source: GeoVille for
ESA/IFAD, 2017, Contains modified Copernicus
Sentinel data
“EO services bring a powerful analytical tool
to the development context. They make you see
the hidden and complex dynamics between the
bio-physical and the socio-economic components
of the livelihood systems; they make you reach
better targeting and they make you see the
difference you bring in the ground and in the
lives of people”
Naoufel Telahigue, Country Program Manager,
IFAD – Near East, North Africa, Europe and
Central Asia Division)
“Satellites provide spatially explicit,
consistent and comparable city-level
observations. These observations have
significantly reduced the uncertainty about the
evolution of cities, creating the opportunity
for better planning of infrastructure
investments and services. The on-going
collaboration with ESA is helping ADB to explore
the value of Earth Observation-based maps and
applying them in designing our lending
projects.”
Vijay Padmanabhan, Director of the Urban
Development and Water Division in ADB’s
Southeast Asia Department and Chief of the ADB
Urban Sector Group
“Earth Observation provides the development
community with an unbiased, consistent and
timely perspective that can inform data-driven
decision-making. Geospatial data and analytics
are increasingly considered key elements for
making development policy and have proven to be
effective in supporting the planning,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation of
Sustainable Development projects. It therefore
helps us to achieve our core mission at the
World Bank to eliminate extreme poverty and
boost shared prosperity, and to better serve our
clients. The well-established partnership with
the European Space Agency is illustrating the
value of EO-derived services for World Bank
operations.”
Laura Tuck, Vice President, Sustainable
Development, World Bank
11.7 Longer-term perspective
The overall objective of space agency
investment in these activities is to ‘mainstream’
the use of EO-based information into development
projects and activities, with the prospect of
sustainable transfer into the working processes and
activities of the main IFIs. This would mean
EO-based information being planned into projects
technically and financially as a systematic source
of environmental information for all project phases:
Identification, Preparation, Appraisal, Negotiation,
and (most importantly) Implementation & Impact
Evaluation.
‘Mainstreaming’ implies a
significant capacity building activity to enable the
full exploitation of EO, including Bank technical
staff and management for the early project phases
and (more importantly) the client country recipient
(i.e., governments of developing countries) for
implementation. Realising this in the complex and
rapidly changing development aid system will require
long-term, sustained efforts.
Promising
initial results are being achieved, and awareness,
interest and momentum is growing. At the 31st CEOS
Plenary in October 2017, space agencies issued a
statement underlining their joint commitment to
developing a coherent strategy and approach to
promote and expand the use of EO in the domain of
Development Aid. It is hoped these efforts will help
EO pragmatically work towards addressing the grand
societal challenges the world is facing now, and is
fully in line with the imperative goal for all
governments to maximize the economic and societal
benefits of investments in their EO observing
systems.
Figure 5: Disappearing agricultural lands due
to river erosion near Ighrem N’Ougdal,
Morocco. Source: DHI GRAS for ESA/World
Bank, 2017
Article Contributors
Authors:
Stephen Coulson, Anna Burzykowska,
Zoltan Bartalis, Benjamin Koetz, Christoph
Aubrecht, Paolo Manunta (European Space Agency)
With contributions from:
Laura Tuck (Vice President,
Sustainable Development, World Bank)
Vijay Padmanabhan (Director of the
Urban Development and Water Division in ADB’s
Southeast Asia Department, and Chief of the ADB
Urban Sector Group)
CEOS - Earth Observation in support of
Official Development Assistance (ODA): A Joint
CEOS Agency Statement for endorsement at 31st CEOS
Plenary, Oct 2017:
goo.gl/GBqGEK
