UMD Geographers Participate in Joint GEO-GLAM/CEOS Workshop on Satellite Observation Requirements for Global Agriculture Monitoring

By Alyssa K. Whitcraft

Drs. Chris Justice and Inbal Becker-Reshef, along with graduate student Alyssa Whitcraft, travelled to Montre- al, Canada in July 2012 to participate in a joint wor kshop between GEO-GLAM (Group on Earth Observations – Global Agriculture Monitoring G20 Initiative) scientists and CEOS (Committee on Earth Observation Satel- lites). The workshop focused on tabulating the necessary satellite observation requirements (spatial resolution, frequency, and timing/duration of coverage) for the GEO-GLAM initiative, whose goal is to reinforce the inter- national community’s capacity to produce and disseminate relevant, timely, and accurate forecasts of agricul- tural production at national, regional and global scales . The small and highly collaborative meeting was hosted by the Canadian Space Agency, and attended by scientists from around the world; in all, the group of sixteen was comprised of ten different nationalities, thereby providing a range of regional perspectives to strengthen a global collaborative network of agriculture monitoring systems.

The workshop was a part of an ongoing international initiative to secure adequate Earth observations for na- tional/international operational agricultural monitoring programs, thereby establishing a coordinated network of monitoring “system of systems” for agricultural produc tion and food security. The two day meeting involved a suite of presentations on regional and global monitoring activities followed by a lively discussion on how to best characterize the wide array of imagery needs into a quantifiable and actionable set of requirements for CEOS and the space agencies to review and implement over the next six years. Dr. Becker-Reshef gave a presentation on the EO perspectives and considerations for implementation of the GEO-GLAM components and on relevant ongoing work at UMD as a part of the GEO-GLAM initiative – including examples from her own research on yield forecasting as well as Ms. Whitcraft’s dissertation research on agricultural growing sea- son calendars and cloud cover probability throughout the growing season. Dr. Justice presented the meeting objectives and helped guide the discussion and synthesize the requirements into a cohesive document. Dur- ing the coming months, these requirements will be strengthened through the addition of spatially explicit articu- lation of imaging timing and resolution requirements, a process that UMD Geographical Sciences is helping to implement and lead.

More information on GEO-GLAM can be found through this press release: http://www.earthobservations.org/ documents/pressreleases/pr_1111_geo_glam.pdf