Copernicus for DRR in Africa

In the context of DLR’s Sentinels-4-African-DRR action, the workshop was conducted by the Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces (ZFL) of the University of Bonn in December 2022. It attracted participants predominantly from Africa, many of them from Western African countries like Nigeria and Ghana. The emphasis was on two major disaster types: flood and drought. The training involved presentations and demonstrations on the use of the Global Drought Observatory (GDO) and the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS) which are part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS). It also explored the combination of Copernicus products with other freely available datasets to create actionable insights.

The number of participants was much higher than anticipated and highlights the interest in this kind of training offer. A survey conducted at the end of the training gave the following insights: with government entities and academia forming the biggest groups of attendees, the event actually reached the user groups mainly targeted by the action. Further, most participants gave their experience levels as intermediate or beginner, which is in line with the presented materials and methods.

Overall feedback was positive, stating that the training was sufficiently detailed and understandable. Participants from different African countries showed interest in more case studies and examples. More virtual events will take place in the coming months.