EO AFRICA R&D Research Projects 2024-2026 – Awarded Proposals:
EO AFRICA R&D Research Projects 2024-2026
Following the successful first two rounds of calls for research proposals, the EO AFRICA R&D Facility, in coordination with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the African Union Commission (AUC), launched in July 2024 a 3rd call for proposals. The aim of this call is to extend the support to African-European collaborative research efforts in the domain of EO applications. Similar to the previous calls, applicants were invited to submit their research ideas to create EO-based algorithms and workflows by leveraging cutting-edge cloud-based data access and computing infrastructure to tackle water and food security challenges in Africa.
This grant provides the selected proposals with 30,000 EUR for research activities during a period of 15 months. In addition, awarded projects will get free access to cloud-based Virtual Research Environments through the Innovation Lab of the Facility, dedicated user and technical support, access to EO AFRICA Space Academy events, and integration into the EO AFRICA Network for international scientific collaboration.
The submitted proposals were evaluated by the Selection Committee in collaboration with ESA and AUC, resulting in 10 research tandem projects (listed below).
Funded Projects:
| Title | Countries | Col Pls |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Copernicus Data for Mapping Shifting Cultivation Dynamics in Conservation Areas of Mozambique. (SEN4MOZ_MZ_DE) | Mozambique Germany |
Natasha Ribeiro Patrick Hostert |
| 2. | Satellite-based Evapotranspiration Modeling and Hyperspectral imAging for Regional Indicators of Droughts in Ethiopia. (SEMHY-ARID_ET_ES) | Ethiopia Spain |
Abebe Mohammed Ali María Dolores Raya Sereno |
| 3. | Sentinel-2 user-relevant water quality monitoring in small southern African water bodies. (SWAM_ZA_GB) | South Africa United Kingdom |
Marié Elizabeth Smith Dalin Jiang |
| 4. | Mapping Drought Risks in Water-Stressed Regions of North Africa: An Integrated Approach. (MARINA_EG_ES) | Egypt Spain |
Zeinab Salah Abdullah Milica Stojanovic |
| 5. | Using Earth Observation for Maize Yield Estimation in Ghana. (GEOMAIZE_GH_BE) | Ghana Belgium |
Kofi Asare Kristof Van Tricht |
| 6. | Improving Zimbabwe’s capacity for air quality monitoring from the ground and by TROPOMI. (AQ4ZIM_ZW_NL) | Zimbabwe The Netherlands |
Munyaradzi Davis Shekede Martin de Graaf |
| 7. | Exploring the potential of thermal satellite images for estimating surface moisture over crops. (THESM_MA_FR) | Morocco France |
Nadia Ouaadi Nicolas Baghdadi |
| 8. | Cameroon Advanced Measurements for Enhanced Observations of Water levels using Affordable GNSS-IR and Sentinel-3&6 Technology. (CAMEO-WAGST_CM_DE) | Cameroon Germany |
Loudi Yap Makan Karegar |
| 9. | Monitoring and forecasting agricultural drought for rainfed rice in Nigeria, using multi-source data. (MOFODRONI_NG_BE) | Nigeria Belgium |
Chiamaka Ehiemere Nick Gutkin |
| 10. | Enhancing Biomass and Carbon Stock Estimation in Tanzanian Forests: Integrating Earth Observation and Machine Learning for Sustainable Forest Management and Food Security. (TANZEO-BioStock_TZ_SE) | Tanzania Sweden |
Dr. Ernest William Mauya Sadegh Jamali |
