Promoting the Use of Meteosat for Supporting Sustainable Development in Africa

Abstract

The present Meteosat satellite system, although primarily designed to serve the meteorological needs of Europe, actually provides operational geostationary coverage over the whole African continent. Four major kinds of services are made available to African countries through the Meteosat System: visible and infrared cloud imagery, collection and dissemination of ground generated observation data, dissemination of meteorological forecasts elaborated in European and African centres, and products derived from the imagery, such as rainfall estimates from Cloud Cold Duration data.

The above services are considered in Africa as an essential support for a number of applications including operational meteorology, water resources management, disaster early warning and desertification monitoring. However developing countries are still far from using all the capabilities of the system, and a limited well-focused effort will help them to take a much larger benefit out of the existing and future satellites. This cooperation is expected to enable the African centres to play their full role within the world meteorological community.

In close consultation with the African users EUMETSAT has identified the following priorities: to enhance interaction with the user community at a regional level, to ensure that data and services are affordable, to support user training, and to facilitate technical access to the data

Practical achievements are reported below. The relationship established between the satellite operator — EUMETSAT — and the regional user community is highlighted as a key element in the success of these actions. Developing strong relationships with selected subregional centres also contributes to the process of local capacity building. EUMETSAT intends to work along these lines with its African partners and to coordinate its efforts with aid agencies whose objectives in this area may be complementary to those of EUMETSAT.