Windhoek
The EU Rangeland Monitoring Project is just one of many facets of the Namibia Rangeland Management Policy and Strategy. The EU Monitoring Project is currently developing and testing a rangeland monitoring system for Namibia.
The main objective is to give land-users an objective measure of deteriorating conditions, hence promoting pro-active management. This assessment, based on satellite monitoring of Namibia’s rangelands and updates of the rangeland conditions, is done every two weeks.
According to the latest update of the project, the northern parts of the Kunene Region, northwestern parts of the Omusati Region, large parts of the Ohangwena Region, northwestern parts of the Khomas Region, northwestern parts of the Kavango West Region and northern parts of the Omaheke Region, all show increased vegetation activity over the past three months.
Areas that experienced severe drought conditions during the last three months include the Karas, Hardap and Zambezi regions, most of the Otjozondjupa Region, south and central Omaheke, large parts of the Erongo, and eastern and southern parts of Khomas, as well as large parts of Kavango East Region.
The Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) is calculated for the previous three months. This provides an overview of the extent and severity of the drought over the preceding three-month period. From the maps it is clear that large parts of Namibia experienced severe drought conditions during the previous three-month period.
The NDVI deviation and Vegetation Condition Index maps provide an objective way to monitor the general state of the vegetation by comparing the current situation with long-term (2001 to current) information.
Since the maps are updated every two weeks, any interested person can track how conditions change over the season for an area of interest.