Title: Earth observations for water resources management - Crawford Fund Derek Tribe Address

Overview: During the Derek Tribe Address, Dr Lisa-Maria Rebelo will discuss the critical role which new applications and tools, based on earth observation data and ICT technologies, have to play in transforming agricultural systems and ensuring the sustainable management of natural resources under current and future climate conditions. The address will highlight from many examples in Africa and Asia how these tools are currently being used to inform policy and investment decisions.

This suite of data tools and databases for improved land and water management, have typically used innovative approaches to address data gaps and provide critically needed information to assess water availability and use. These developments have kept apace and harnessed rapidly developing advances in satellite and other sources of imagery as well as data modeling and analytical techniques. Applicable at global to regional scales, these data tools have included an earth observation-based approach to understanding just how much water is available and where/how this is being used on an operational basis in data scarce areas. This information is invaluable to water and agriculture planners and decision-makers, as they grapple with decreasing water availability and the growing impacts of climate change which is undermining the historical records they have relied on to date, to support their work. In recent advances, climate change scenarios have been used to develop an understanding of future trajectories of water accounts in a river basin and helps to answer the critical question of “Will there be water?”

In many agricultural and natural resources management arenas, lack of data is cited as the major impediment to effective and realistic decision-making. Lisa’s drive to innovate approaches to filling that data gap has led to evidence-based informed strategic policy developments and day-to-day management of critical water resources across sectors in many African and Asian countries.

Background: Dr Lisa-Maria Rebelo has been awarded the Derek Tribe Award for 2022 by the Crawford Fund. She has been recognized for her work across the African continent, and in South and Southeast Asia, in water productivity, remote sensing, natural resource management, wetland monitoring and assessment, basin water accounting, water productivity.

The Derek Tribe Award was inaugurated in 2001 to mark the outstanding contributions of Emeritus Professor Derek Tribe AO OBE FTSE, Foundation Director of the Crawford Fund, to the promotion of international agricultural research.

The Derek Tribe Award is made biennially to a citizen of a developing country in recognition of their distinguished contributions to the application of research in agriculture or natural resource management in a developing country or countries.

The Crawford Fund is pleased to partner with Geosciences Australia to support Lisa-Maria to visit Australia to share her experiences and to deliver the 2022 Derek Tribe Address.

Title: Digital Earth Africa: empowering African led solutions for climate action with Australian innovation - Geoscience Australia Distinguished Lecture Award

Overview: Digital Earth Africa (DE Africa) is a flagship investment for the Australian aid program in Africa, deploying world-class Australian innovation at unprecedented scales to deliver development outcomes across the African continent.

Since 2019, DE Africa has been delivered through successful African - Australian partnerships, with Australian innovation supporting African leadership to support sustainable development, as well as build resilience and adapt to climate change. By providing access to freely available, decision ready earth observation information, Digital Earth Africa is now supporting a diverse range of governments, communities and industry partners to make more informed decisions on topics of national significance, such as supporting community-led climate action through mangrove conservation in Tanzania, high-level government decision-making on unregulated mining in Ghana and giraffe conservation in Kenya.

The new DE Africa Coastline monitoring tool enables users to analyse coastal erosion and growth trends on an annual basis, and is now being used by partners in Senegal to support climate adaptation and mitigation efforts. Leveraging innovation from DE Australia, DE Africa Coastlines exemplifies how global to regional scale earth observation-based tools can successfully empower locally led decision making. Other continent wide, earth observation based services available through DE Africa, include Water Observations from Space, a provisional Crop Extent map and Vegetation Fractional cover. These innovative tools have immense potential to fill key data gaps needed to improve assessments of water use and availability and to support agricultural and natural resources management across the African continent.

Background: Cedric will be presenting this talk on behalf of the Digital Earth Africa establishment team as part of Geoscience Australia’s Distinguished Geoscience Australia Lecture series