The Project

EOMAJI (Earth Observation system to Manage Africa’s food systems by Joint-knowledge of crop production and Irrigation digitization) will make use of a thermal-based energy balance model model (TSEB), to evaluate ET with inputs from the scientific ECOSTRESS and PRISMA missions, as an exploration of the capabilities for future operational satellite missions in deriving improved ET as well as yield/biomass and irrigation products. This will also allow acquiring a better understanding of water use efficiency of cultivated landscapes.

Both intermediate (ET, crop traits) and final products (crop productivity and yield, as well as irrigation delimitation and accounting) will be evaluated against available in situ measurements collected outside Africa, in already running long-term experimental sites (Majadas de Tietar FLUXNET site in Spain and other ICOS sites), as well as in African sites in collaboration with African Early Adopters (Ministry of Agriculture of Burkina Faso and the Ministry Lands and Water Affairs of Botswana). Together with CSIR and University of Pretoria of South Africa, we foresee to exploit existing crop yield and irrigation reports that are acquired by those institutions to validate project outputs.

This EO AFRICA Explorer project aims to provide prototypes of innovative ET and irrigation products by exploiting new satellite missions (ECOSTRESS+PRISMA). R&D learnings and products, from this project, will also support the upscaling and transfer to future Copernicus satellite missions (LSTM and CHIME) and potentially integrate within the GMES & Africa products and services. These future products would broaden its outreach capabilities and serve for Africa’s digital transition, especially within the agricultural sector. This is in line with the long-term vision of the AUC and the European Commission’s proposal for a joint African-European partnership for Africa’s digital transformation.