GMES & Africa Collaborative Workshop on Soil Erosion and Forest Monitoring

From the 9th to the 12th of December 2024, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, the Regional Centre For Mapping Of Resources For Development (RCMRD) and the IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) organized a Collaborative Workshop at RCMRD premises (Nairobi) on Soil Erosion and Forest Monitoring. This workshop is part of a series of activities focused on building capacity and decision-making capabilities provided by JRC in the framework of the GMES & Africa Program. The key thematic topics in Eastern Africa are forest, land degradation, and protected areas monitoring.

The participants of the workshop included national regional and international institutions: IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), Regional Centre For Mapping Of Resources For Development (RCMRD), Kenya Water Towers Agency (KWTA), Kenya Forest Service (KFS), Department of Resource Surveys and Remote Sensing (DRSRS), National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), Wildlife Research & Training Institute (WRTI), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Wide Fund for Nature-Kenya (WWF) and Kenyatta University (KU). The workshop was chaired by Baudouin Desclée (Thematic Expert, JRC), Dario Simonetti (GIS IT Developer, JRC), Joseph Murage (GMES & Africa Project Manager, RCMRD) and David Ongo (ICPAC).

The main goal of the workshop was to improve and consolidate the knowledge of latest developed JRC tools on forest monitoring, land-cover and soil erosion and to further support and enhance the activities in G&A with the national partners.

 - Present the latest EO-based tools available in the JRC IMPACT Toolbox and eStation platform developed by the JRC in the framework of the G&A and ClimSA program; 
- Discuss about the operational soil erosion/forest/land-cover monitoring already developed in G&A, including available tools and methodologies; 
- Agree on the best practices, data and model for soil erosion assessment. 
- Review the existing products and identify new datasets needed for the different services.
 - Provide an opportunity for co-learning across the different institutions. 

The main outcome of the workshop was the reinforcement of the partnership between JRC and key partners in East Africa, especially RCMRD and ICPAC, and establish a connected network among the different East African institutions working on Soil Erosion/Forest/Land Cover related applications. The workshop was very well received by the nineteen participants who have really endorsed the JRC IMPACT Toolbox and requested further support on the JRC eStation. 

Links: 
JRC : https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/index_en 
RCMRD: https://rcmrd.org/en/ 
ICPAC : https://www.icpac.net/ 
GMES & Africa: http://gmes.africa-union.org 
JRC IMPACT Toolbox: https://forobs.jrc.ec.europa.eu/IMPACT - JRC eStation online : https://estation.jrc.ec.europa.eu/eStation3/