Together with IHE Delft, HKV developed and provided a ‘Hands-on training on the use of remote sensing for water management for climate-smart agriculture’. This training focuses on the use of Remote Sensing (specifically the tool Google Earth Engine) for water management and ‘climate-smart agriculture’. The training is requested and hosted by the University of Eldoret in Kenya. Also, researchers, teachers and governmental professionals of Egerton University and Baringo and Kisumu County are participants of the training.
By using satellite data of the past 40 years it is possible to research why and how several lakes in Kenya such as Lake Victoria, Lake Baringo and Lake Nakuru have experienced higher water levels in recent years because of which they have flooded houses on their shores. Next to that we also learn the participants how to release information on vegetation (NDVI) and climate parameters (rainfall and temperature) from satellite data to be able to conduct multi-yearly analysis on these.
In the training the participants received several in-depth and inspirational presentations from Dutch and Kenyan experts as well as hands-on exercises to directly use the different types of satellite data. The training consisted of 7 weeks of online training with twice a week 3 hours training. All course material and recorded online meetings and presentations can be found at our online e-learning platform in Moodle. This enables the participants and other interested parties to redo the training. After the period of the online training the participants got assigned to a mentor who supported them on their ‘assignment-in-practice’. This assignment focusses on a subject, area and time period of choice which is relevant to the daily work of the participant.
The final part of the training is the in-country week. In this period that took place from 22nd of November to the 26th of November 2021, the participants received extra support on their ‘assignment-in-pracitce’ as well as extra lectures and tutorials on new subjects that can be researched with remote sensing. At the end of the in-country week a symposium was held to which we invited a wider audience. By inviting supervisors of the participants as well as other Kenyan organisations to get acquainted with the skills and knowledge the participants gained during the training, the impact of the training increased.