WASCAL-DE-Coop Kick-Off at the WASCAL Competence Center in Burkina Faso

WASCAL-DE-Coop Kick-Off at the WASCAL Competence Center in Burkina Faso

September 10, 2019

From 31st August to 05th September 2019, five colleagues from the Department of Remote Sensing (working group Dr. Michael Thiel) together with their partners from the Physical Geography (working group Prof. Dr. Barbara Sponholz) and Climatology (working group Prof. Dr. Heiko Paeth) at the University of Würzburg travelled to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, West Africa. With scientists and experts from the WASCAL Competence Center (CoC) they jointly kick-offed the project WASCAL-DE-Coop .

During the three meeting days at the WASCAL CoC, the scientific dialogue and discussions generally focused on the current project work and on planning future activities and milestones. Numerous presentations covered the whole range of thematic foci and technical topics that build-up WASCAL-DE-Coop. Thus, contributions dealt with

  • concepts and approaches on application-oriented remote sensing data analysis and spatial-temporal assessment of the vegetation structure and variability of the agrarian-ecological use of savannah systems in West Africa,
  • methods on the model-based analysis of carbon sequestration in vegetation and the variability and dynamics of fire events in savannah ecosystems, and their effects on the fire-induced release of greenhouse gas emissions,
  • the sustainable utilization of derived datasets in operational applications by developing and implementing a data cube on the WASCAL high performance computer at the CoC, as well as
  • the dissemination of thematic policy briefs and strategy papers regarding human-environmental interactions in context of climate and land use change.

The project kick-off in the capital of Burkina Faso was supplemented by a short field trip to Dano in the Ioba province in the southern country. In close cooperation with the Dreyer Foundation and with local farmers, the WASCAL project builds on the infrastructure at place and operates a multi-sensor observation network. Discussions from the kick-off were continued on site.

The main outcomes of the project kick-off and field trip stress the importance of developing and providing services in WASCAL and frame the roadmap for future activities to support informed policy and decision-making to combat climate change and improve livelihoods in West Africa.

The WASCAL-DE-Coop project is coordinated by the Department of Remote Sensing at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU). Under the grant number 01LG1808A, WASCAL-DE-Coop is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through the project carrier at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

you may also like:

EORC at the International Africa Festival 2025 in Würzburg

EORC at the International Africa Festival 2025 in Würzburg

If you know Würzburg, you certainly know the International Africa Festival, Europe's largest and oldest festival for African music and culture. For 15 years in a row now, the university tent has been an integral part of the festival. This is where the...

EO4CAM meeting at LfU in Augburg on grassland in Bavaria

EO4CAM meeting at LfU in Augburg on grassland in Bavaria

As part of the EO4CAM project (Earth Observation Laboratory for Climate Adaption and Mitigation), representatives of the Bavarian Environment Agency (LfU), the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), and the Earth Observation Research Cluster (EORC) met at the LfU in...

New R Package Enhances UAS Research and Planning

New R Package Enhances UAS Research and Planning

We’re excited to share the development of a new R package created by our PhD student, Antonio Castaneda Gomez, whose contributions to Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) research continue to impress. Known as the brain behind many of our UAS data collection...

Radio Bavaria BR2 covered our activities at the Africa-Festival

Radio Bavaria BR2 covered our activities at the Africa-Festival

Once again, our team proudly took part in the International Africa Festival in Würzburg, continuing our active participation within the University of Würzburg's exhibition—a tradition we’ve upheld for many years. This year’s event highlighted the ongoing commitment of...

Mapping Paleontology using UAS on cliffs

Mapping Paleontology using UAS on cliffs

We’ve recently started an exciting research project focused on mapping steep rock slopes that contain valuable paleontological information. Unlike most drone surveys that focus on horizontal ground surfaces, our work is aimed vertically—capturing data along exposed...