Author: remedia_dev

Linda Gotsmy is a Master’s student at the BOKU University in Vienna, making significant contributions to the field of social ecology within ESA’s LUISA project. With a background in environmental management, Linda is leveraging her interdisciplinary skills to explore the complex interactions between ecological and societal systems. “Social ecology offers essential methodological tools for examining the interactions between human societies and natural systems – which is a central element to sustainability science” explains Linda. 

Her interest in social ecology led her to contact Dr. Karl-Heinz Erb, head of the Institute of Social Ecology at BOKU University and BOKU’s lead in the LUISA project. “I was given the opportunity to work within the project, and experience firsthand how an international research project develops, learn project management skills, and observe how consortia and international partners work together, which is a really special characteristic of LUISA.” she adds.

HANPP key contribution to LUISA

BOKU is the main university developing the Human Appropriation of Net Primary Productivity framework (HANPP), which is central to LUISA.

What is HANPP?   HANPP evaluates the share of Net Primary Productivity (NPP) that is appropriated by human activities (such as farming, logging, or urban development) on a detailed, pixel-by-pixel scale. This metric helps researchers comprehend the interplay between the productivity and carbon dynamics of natural and managed ecosystems and the demands placed on land resources by human use.

Linda contributes to the project by collecting agricultural data on the case study level to validate the remote sensing tool, aiming to improve the understanding of biomass use and land-use changes in disaster-prone regions.

In the course of the project, Linda had the possibility to further explore local land use dynamics during a field visit in Nhamatanda, Mozambique, one of the case studies in the LUISA project. “We noticed there was a lack of data to properly quantify HANPP on the district level. That’s why I travelled to Nhamatanda to connect with partners and acquire additional data,” Linda clarifies.

Fieldwork in Mozambique

Linda spent a month in Nhamatanda District, Mozambique, gathering data for her master thesis. During fieldwork, she interviewed experts, visited statistical offices and interacted with stakeholders, ranging from smallholder farmers to policy-makers.

According to Linda, “These stakeholders have to adapt to life with the new challenges that climate change, and in particular extreme weather events, bring. It was very insightful to see how climate change impacts agricultural practices and biomass use”.

The data-collection process included experimental methods, such as weighing and measuring typical fuel wood and charcoal sold in local markets. Linda visited four different villages within the district, conducting surveys to estimate the quantities of biomass used by the communities. This data collection was crucial for validating the remote sensing models and understanding the local land-use dynamics.

“BOKU’s collaboration with Data4Moz was instrumental in overcoming language barriers and ensuring accurate data collection,” Linda adds. As local partners, they facilitated communication with community members and government officials, enabling Linda to gather comprehensive and reliable data.

One of the highlights of this fieldwork experience was visiting a remote community in the Nhamatanda District, which required traveling by boat and motorcycle. “It was on a very remote side of the district. We had to drive there with a floating boat, and then hop onto motorcycles,” she recalls.

A local perspective

Linda’s analysis of the data collected in Mozambique revealed significant insights into the impacts of extreme weather events on agriculture. “I think the most important result is how the extreme weather events are affecting agricultural production by subsistence farmers” she explains. Linda also observed the most significant drivers of land-use change and biomass harvest in the region.

Her findings highlighted the contribution of charcoal production to tree cover losses in the district. Further, she could identify a shift towards more “cash crops”, such as sesame, which is an important oil crop exported from the region. This commercialization effort is putting additional pressure on the land-use system, affecting subsistence farmers who rely on their fields for survival.

Next steps

Linda is now finishing her master thesis about her work in Nhamatanda, Mozambique. In the current stage of the LUISA project, the data collected is now compared with top-down assessments to ensure accuracy and reliability and to improve modelling capacities. “We have produced the 1st results from the top-down assessment. So, now is the time to look in detail at how they differ from the bottom-up calculations,” she explains.

The next steps involve further developing the HANPP framework and understanding its implications for sustainable land-use decisions. Linda’s contributions are helping to refine the methods and data inputs, ensuring that the framework accurately reflects the realities of land use in disaster-prone regions. According to Linda, “The best part of the LUISA project is the international collaboration with African partners. Thanks to this new network, we are able to work together on key issues for the locals”.

From math to climate

Rebecca’s academic journey began with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at the University of Exeter, where she grew an interest in climate science as a practical application of mathematics. After finishing her bachelor’s, she completed an MSc in climate and fluid dynamics, bridging her background in mathematics to important global environmental challenges.

This expertise was further cultivated during her PhD, diving into carbon cycle research and Earth’s system models. Her work centered on understanding how CO2 emissions alter natural carbon fluxes, and methods to reduce uncertainty in predictions of climate change using large-scale global models.

“Variables like CO2 emissions and rising temperatures influence how much CO2 can be absorbed by vegetation during photosynthesis and released from the soil via respiration. We can simulate these processes using mathematical models to understand and quantify how much carbon will be in the atmosphere,” Rebecca explains.

A unique role in LUISA

Now, as a post-doctoral researcher, Rebbeca is contributing to LUISA by using the UK land surface model to simulate the impacts of human activities, such as farming and pastoralism, on vegetation in Africa.

“We can run a model over the 20th century and compare it to the start of the 21st century to investigate the impacts of humans on vegetation in Africa,” she says. This involves creating detailed maps of Africa’s vegetation productivity and comparing scenarios with and without human land use changes.

Using accurate data in these models is one of the biggest challenges of her work, as “African landscapes aren’t represented as well as other regions in the models,” she notes. By incorporating satellite data from the European Space Agency (ESA), the LUISA team aims to improve the accuracy of their simulations, “The more observational data we have, the better our models will be.”

Artificial Intelligence in Mathematical Models

Rebecca is excited about the future of her field. According to her, “Large-scale models from all over the world are getting more and more complex. Researchers are starting to include as many biogeochemical processes within our models as possible, but that makes it computationally more expensive.” She also sees a role for machine learning in complementing traditional modeling techniques; “I think there’s space for both AI and machine learning, but it won’t replace the physical modeling”.

Rebecca’s work is still ongoing, but she is optimistic about the potential findings. “We’re currently looking into the impacts of drought and recent climate change on vegetation productivity,” she indicates. Her contributions as part of ESA’s LUISA will pave the way for more accurate and sustainable land use policies in Africa.

The LUISA project, a groundbreaking ESA-funded initiative to map and analyse land use for carbon accounting and climate change mitigation across Africa, was officially presented at the 2024 EOAfrica Symposium in Frascati, Italy.

Egor Prikaziuk, Assistant Professor in the Department of Water Resources at the Faculty ITC and key member of the LUISA team, shared insights into the project’s objectives and his experience at the EOAfrica Symposium.

What is Luisa?

LUISA, standing for Land Use Intensity’s Potential, Vulnerability and Resilience for Sustainable Agriculture in Africa, is a continental demonstrator under the broader umbrella of the European Space Agency’s EOAfrica initiative.

Unlike other projects that focus on specific regions, LUISA aims to provide a comprehensive map of the entire African continent, covering various types of vegetation used as rangelands, croplands, forests and urban vegetation.

The main objective of LUISA is to develop and implement new methods, effectively linking and integrating modelling, satellite Earth Observation, and datasets with in-situ, stakeholder-generated, social-economic data to advance the estimation of continental Africa potential, vulnerability and resilience for sustainable agriculture.

Assessing human influence on ecosystems

One of the unique aspects of the LUISA project is its focus on human impact on ecosystems. As Egor explains, “We try to quantify how much biomass expressed in units of carbon was taken up by humans, either as harvested grains or grazed by cattle” This includes measuring how changes in land use affect the carbon balance, which is crucial for understanding the environmental impact of human activities and for climate mitigation.

In the past, biomass was estimated from national statistics. LUISA introduces a new approach, employing a combination of satellite data and ground-based measurements to achieve its goals. “We use satellite products to estimate this, but the second biggest component is weather data,” Egor notes. This dual approach of using satellite and weather data ensures that the data collected is both comprehensive and precise.

Case studies

Although the LUISA project is currently at its mid-term, significant progress has already been made. The team has created detailed maps for four case study regions: Senegal, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Mozambique. These maps, which have a resolution of 20 meters, will be scaled up to cover the entire continent at resolutions of 300 meters to 1 kilometre. The information LUISA has collected in these case study regions could be crucial for developing sustainable land use policies and practices.

Engaging with the remote sensing community

The EOAfrica Symposium 2024 provided an excellent opportunity for the LUISA team to present their work. The team showcased three posters, each highlighting different aspects of the project. 

One poster, presented by ITC Assistant Professor Michael Schlund, gave a general overview of LUISA, while a poster submitted from the University of Exeter focused on assimilating leaf area index (LAI) to estimate Net Primary Productivity (NPP)–two important components of biomass modelling. Egor’s poster detailed a small-scale comparison study, demonstrating only a 2% information loss when degrading scales to estimate NPP.

Due to the highly technical focus of the symposium, Egor noticed that the concept of integrating social relevance into remote sensing data was still new to many attendees. He observes:

“I think it’s a bit new for the remote sensing community to go that deep into the social aspects”

In this regard, LUISA is an opportunity to engage the geospatial community in the value of measuring human influence on ecosystems.

Looking ahead

The LUISA project is set to enter its next phase, which involves scaling up the case studies to a continental level. This phase will be led by the Belgian research centre VITO. Additionally, the team plans to hold training activities in Africa next year to involve stakeholders (Bahir Dar University, DATA4MOZ, CSE, Makerere University) from the case study regions (Ethiopia, Mozambique, Senegal, Uganda) and disseminate findings.