The Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) hosted a prolific WeMAST II user needs assessment and stakeholders engagement workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe from the 31st of October to the 1st of November, 2024. The two-day workshop, which was held in Harare was co-hosted with the Zambezi Watercourse Commission with the objective of discussing specific wetlands monitoring indicators that contributes in the upscaling and operationalization of the WeMAST II geoportal which was developed in Phase I.
The Wetlands Monitoring and Assessment Service for Transboundary River Basins in Southern Africa(WeMAST) ) is a project funded under the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) & Africa Support Programme between the Africa Union and the European Union, in the area of space science and technology and a key priority under the EU-Africa partnership. GMES & Africa aims to promote development of local capacities, institutional, human and technical resources for access to and exploitation of Earth Observation (EO) based services on an operational basis for sustainable development in Africa.
Upscaling of the WeMAST geoportal has a significant role in the delivering of products and information services that will enable policy makers, private sector and other users to have effective sustainable management and monitoring of the wetlands in the Zambezi River Basin using the Earth Observation data accessed on the WeMAST geoportal. Currently the WeMAST geoportal has enhanced its key features where the tool has updated high spatial resolutions datasets with quality imagery; enhanced userinterface and additional ancillary data sets as well as the ability to have the real time effect where what the tool shows will be what will be happening on the ground. SASSCAL and its technical partners also developed a mobile app for the WeMAST tool and this has made it easy for users of earth data observation on their mobile phones.
The stakeholders who attended include: the Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM); non Governmental organization; local communities; senior government officials involved in both the policy development and implementation as they will provide insights from regulatory and implementor’s perspectives in the WeMAST upscaling process. Furthermore, there are tour operators who are attending who are also key in the process as they are primary wetland service users and at the same time are involved in citizen data collection and will provide the developers with an opportunity to integrity data within the scope of citizen science.
Researchers are also part of the attendants and they will assist in providing a discord in the present science and assist in identifying quantifiable indicators of wetland monitoring, as well as identifying monitoring objects and guide on the direction in which wetland monitoring science is heading.
SASSCAL’s WeMAST User Needs Assessment meeting seeks to categorise needs and preferences of users based on similarities and differences through discussions. The discussions are expected to contribute a significant input in the outlining of the key user needs and when they will be incorporated in the upscaling of the WeMAST II geoportal tool. Morever; the discussions are expected to play a key role in defining the Zambezi basin specific indicators; categorising data quality control measures to ensuring that WeMAST users have access to quality assured data; categorising robust data security control measures to ensure that data providers including citizen science data providers are protected within relevant data protection regulations; and categorising training and capacity building needs to effectively operate and benefit from the full capabilities of the WeMAST II geoportal system.
Overall the inputs will also be used towards the development of a relevant custom-made user-centric geoportal for sound wetland monitoring and assessment in the whole of Southern Africa. The geoportal that is built on a centralized database but using jointly agreed and understood indicators and product results representing wetland characteristics as best as possible and common to a wide range of users in terms of the service provision.
