Research

Projects

ESA DRAGON Droughts

Principal investigator Bob Su
Partner(s) Dr. Youqi Chen, Institute of Natural Resources and Regional Planning, CAAS;
Prof. Massimo Menenti, CNR - ISAFoM, Italy;
Prof. Jose Sobrino, Universitat de Valencia, Spain;
Prof. Zhao-Liang Li, GRTR/LSIIT, France;
Dr. Wout Verhoef, National Aerospace Laboratory;
Prof. Peter Troch, Universityof Arizona, USA;
ir. Kees van Diepen, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Alterra;
Dr Michael Petrakis, Dr. C. Gainnakopoulos, National Observatory of Athens, Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development I., Greece;
Dr. Liming Wang, Remote Sensing Application Center, China Ministry of Agriculture;
Prof. Jiren Li, China Institute of Water and Hydro-power Research (IWHR);
Prof. Yaoming Ma, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP), CAS;
Prof. Li Wan, China University of Geoscience (CUG), Beijing;
Dr. Yanbo He, China National Meteorological Center;
Prof. Qinhuo Liu, Institute of Remote Sensing Applications (IRSA), CAS;
Caixing Li, Remote Sensing Application Research Center in Tibet;
Prof. Jun WEN, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute (CAREERI)
Funding ESA-NRSCC Dragon Programme
Research period 2005 – 2007

 

Summary

Drought disasters have often caused great hunger, social instability, large scale migration of the population and the distinction of civilizations in the history. The conflict between supply and demand of water resources constitutes the biggest problem for food security of a huge population in China and drought has become a key factor constraining China’s economic development.

The objective of this project is to develop an operational system for nation wide drought monitoring and drought impact assessment for application in agriculture and hydrology in China using ESA and other relevant satellite data as major data source in combination with other data source (e.g. meteorological and drought statistics, etc.).

In detail the project will generate:

  1. scientifically based drought mitigation and drought relief decision alternatives
  2. real time drought monitoring and prediction maps
  3. improved understanding of land surface processes over heterogeneous terrain
  4. algorithms for estimation of land surface parameters and heat fluxes over China
  5. assessment of economic loss caused by drought and finally providing suggestions for drought relief decisions

An Internet based system will be developed to provide information concerning the drought evolution situation and to support drought relief decision-making. The system will be implemented at the Remote Sensing Application Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and can be accessed in real time by decision-making agencies at different levels (national, provincial, local authorities) via Internet.