Pastoral Surveillance System in the Sahel - Phase 2

The aim is to help all stakeholders better anticipate and respond to climate shocks. The surveillance system draws on two sources of information:

First, two European satellites equipped with sensors capable of taking daily images at a resolution of 1 km. These images identify the presence of surface water and the density of available vegetation.
Then, a network of volunteers on the ground answers a brief questionnaire every 10 days providing information on their area: the availability of pasture and water, bush fires and livestock diseases, the price of animals on the local market, and so on.

The network currently comprises 90 sentinel sites, to which a further 20 will be added by 2023. All of this information is compiled and analysed to provide valuable intelligence on the status of available water resources and pasture for livestock. By monitoring these parameters over time, it is also possible to produce anomaly maps. This involves comparing the situation in an area during the current season with data from the last 20 years. Calculating anomalies in this way helps to identify areas where climate change is diminishing the availability of pastoral resources.