FAO - Africover Eastern Africa: Implementation Status

The project was declared operational in 1995. Among first activities, the national working groups were established, composed by representatives of concerned ministries and institutions, and equipped.

During the first phase the project reached an advanced state of implementation with the completion of several national Multipurpose AFRICOVER Database on Environmental Resources (MADE); a second phase of the Project has been started in 2000 to complete the remaining MADEs and develop other methodological and normative components.

The achievements of the project up to the year 2002 can be summarized according to the following areas of results:

(I) Data production

National MADEs (that includes detailed land cover interpretation, roads, rivers, International and national boundaries) have been completed and delivered for the following countries:

- Burundi
- Egypt
- Eritrea
- Kenya
- Rwanda
- Somalia
- Tanzania
National MADEs (that includes detailed land cover interpretation, roads, rivers, International and national boundaries) for Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Uganda is under development and will be completed by the end of the project
Regional standard MADE, built through the integration of national made, under development

(II) Capacity building and sustainable production and use of data

Provision of equipment to National Focal Point Institutions (NFPIs)
Set up of communication and networking mechanisms (forums, workshops, web site – www.africover.org -, e-mailing system)
Interpretation of satellite images for the national land cover map executed by national photo-interpreters
Training of 40 national photo-interpreters on the AFRICOVER methodology
Training of 9 national officers in updating, managing and distributing MADE
Development of a complete set of integrated software that constitutes a cost effective reliable solution to produce, update and interact with land cover information:
- GeoVIS, vector based topological GIS system for visual image interpretation
- AIMs, image processing suite
- LCCS, legend development tool
- AID, support to interpretation process through data integration (under development)
- ADG, data gateway to extract user customized land cover information to answer specific needs (under development
Most of these applications are available as freeware.
Provision to the counties of the complete software toolbox for land cover data production, management and distribution
Distribution of completed MADEs to the countries
Development of an agreement on data custodianship, management and update of national MADEs to promote and facilitate use and maintenance of data at national level

(III) Normative and methodological development

Development of Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) used to produce the MADEs and adopted by FAO and UNEP as the international standard for land cover classification
Development of a cost effective methodology for the production of land cover databases assuring high quality standards
Drafting of conceptual basis for the identification of a normative standard to assure consistency, compatibility and harmonization of land cover data sets produced in different regions of the world
Set up of a web site on land cover mapping focused on the LCCS software (www.lccs-info.org)
Organization of conferences and workshops on land cover mapping standards and methodologies

(IV) Data distribution and dissemination

Development of agreements on public distribution of re-aggregated MADE to allow the international and scientific community to access and use the data
Set up of web based facilities to distribute the data sets
Creation of partnerships with the most important bodies active in the environmental and development sector

Statistics on the national MADEs

The national MADEs are characterized by a high level of detail: find out more on the characteristics of the databases completed so far.

Application of Africover data

An increasing number of initiatives are benefiting directly from the outputs of the project, that succeeded to fill an important data gap.

Among the different initiatives there are:

- development of early warning facilities in Somalia
- improved understanding of the hydrological regimes of the Nile
- study of the migratory paths of large mammals to conserve local habitat in Tanzania
- mapping of vulnerable coastal habitats in Tanzania and Kenya

The overall results achieved by the project showed the feasibility of the production of accurate standardized land cover information for large areas of the world.

The experience and technology developed with the Africover project, particularly in the development of normative standards and methodologies, are at the base of an initiative for global land cover mapping jointly launched by FAO an UNEP (Global Land Cover Network) to answer the need for user customized standard land cover information at global level.