On the Use of the eStation Developed in the GMES & Africa EU Project: Results from the User Survey

Abstract

In 2007, at the 2nd Africa-EU Summit, the development and implementation of earth observation based services to support sustainable development in Africa was agreed. A joint Africa-EU strategy created a framework for cooperation to this end called GMES & Africa. This cooperation aims to produce products and services relevant to the needs of Africans and implemented by African institutions. It is based in particular on the European Copernicus program. The themes covered by the cooperation include natural resource management, marine and coastal areas, water resource management, climate variability and change, disaster risk reduction and food security. Building on its early involvement in the previous projects, the Joint Research Centre has developed an operational and distributable open-source data processing tool, called eStation. One year before the end of the first phase of the project, a full survey of eStation users was conducted. The objective of the survey was to get a full overview of the use, strength, weakness and way to improve the eStation in an operational context. This study presents the main results of the survey. It identifies who are the users, what their operational tasks are and how they communicate the information to decision makers. In addition, the use of the station is described, its strengths and weaknesses are identified as well as the technical and thematic difficulties encountered. The survey underlines the importance of maintaining a constant dialogue between users and developers in order to offer technical and thematic supports to improve the efficiency of the use of the tools. This can be done by organising training and workshops and is essential for the proper use of the tools and products.