ISPRS
promises to widen the divide between the prosperous and
the disadvantaged. Currently, over 4.5 billion people in
developing countries can not expect to live beyond the
age of 40 and do not have access to knowledge or serv-
ices to significantly improve their lives. Nearly 1.2 billion
people live on less than $1 per day. Some 780 million peo-
ple are chronically malnourished and some 1.3 billion peo-
ple cannot access clean drinking water. Additionally, each
year, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, famine and disease
outbreaks place hundreds of millions of people in peril,
robbing them of basic life necessities.
Will the new digital age close the gap between the advan-
taged and disadvantaged? While commercial interests will
drive much of the change and innovation, the people that
would benefit most have little or no access or purchasing
power. Information for all, in particular, providing informa-
tion access to the disadvantaged as well as building the
social infrastructure required to provide them with sustain-
able purchasing power will be a daunting task for govern-
ments, international organisations and the non-profit sec-
tor at large. The UN system and NGO sector will continue
to play a critical role in caring for the world's disadvan-
taged and providing the means to improve their global
social standing. Information, both as product and service,
will play a key role in the globalisation process and is
essential for addressing the sustainability issue. Informa-
tion technology is arguably today the fastest advancing
research and development and commercial sector-
whether the focus is collection, storage, transformation or
transmission of information, new advances are introduced
seemingly every day. International organisations, espe-
cially the UN system, the NGOs and government agencies,
need to join their hands in promoting availability, accessi-
bility usefulness, producibility and understandability of
information for all. Equally important is the growing neces-
sity to share information between agencies and organisa-
tions, as well as the public at large, in such a way that
information is used in an integrated, timely and reliable
manner for decision making. Wider connectivity, greater
accessibility and reliable content, as well as more flexible
capacity for use of information for all people of the world
are critical dimensions in reducing spatial marginalisation
and filling the digital divide.
Filling digital divide in spatial information domain-GIS
and remote sensing as proven decision support tools
for sustainable development in FAO
The importance of information and decision support tools
for sustainable management in agriculture, forest and
fisheries has been long recognised by FAO, which intro-
duced remote sensing in renewable natural resources
management in the early 1980s. In response to UNCED
decisions, an Environment and Natural Resources Ser-
vice (SDRN) was created within the Sustainable Develop-
ment Department (http://www.fao.org/sd) through the
merger of several environmentally related programmes,
including the FAO Remote Sensing Centre. The Service
supports a wide range of normative and field pro-
grammes concerned with development of environmental
database and decision support tools, environment analy-
sis and natural resources management. Remote sensing
and GIS have also become important tools for address-
ing issues relating to environmental agreements, such as
64 ——
Conventions on biological diversity, desertification and
climate change.
1. Satellite Environmental Information Monitoring
System
In the field of environmental monitoring, FAO has since
1988 been operating the Africa Real Time Environmental
Monitoring Information System (ARTEMIS). ARTEMIS
supports the operational monitoring of seasonal growing
conditions and vegetation development over Africa,
based on hourly Meteosat and daily NOAA-AVHRR data.
Specifically, the information is provided for use in early
warning for food security, crop forecasting, desert locust
control, animal health, water resources management and
forestry applications. ARTEMIS distributes routine images
containing information about rainfall and vegetation activ-
ity, by electronic means to users at FAO Headquarters and
at regional and national levels. The rainy season perform-
ance assessment capability of the system, based on the
use of GMS data, also covers Eastern Asia since 1996.
NOAA AVHRR-based vegetation index coverage is now
accessible by South and Central America. The various
tools and technology developed by FAO and its collabo-
rators have been transferred to a number of regions/sub-
regions for operational uses in environmental and food
security monitoring.
Currently, FAO, in co-operation with the European Com-
mission through its Space Applications Institute of the
Joint Research Centre (JRC), is implementing a routine
flow of global 1 kilometre resolution VEGETATION data
from the SPOT-4 satellite. FAO has also entered into a for-
mal agreement with NASA for the development of the use
of Earth observation data from the MODIS instrument on
the TERRA satellites. Similar discussions are ongoing with
EUMETSAT and ESA concerning the use of data from
future Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) and ENVISAT
satellite missions, respectively.
As an essential operational early warning tool, an inte-
grated computer workstation capable of integrating
remote sensing, agrometeorological, socio-economic and
statistical data on a common geographic basis has been
developed in the context of its Global Information and
Early Warning System (GIEWS) on Food and Agriculture.
The enabling facility has also been transferred for use at
the regional level in the SADC region and has the potential
of being made operational in other parts of the world.
Remote sensing and GIS technology have also been used
in the development of schemes to control transboundary
livestock diseases under the FAO EMPRES Programme.
Earlier studies relating normalised difference vegetation
index (NDVI) datasets from ARTEMIS to tsetse distribution
and land utilisation types in Nigeria and Togo led to the
establishment of an operational information system to
define policies for African animal trypanosomiasis control.
Remote sensing is used to define technical concepts for
tsetse control in countries where high-resolution satellite
imagery is available to discern land utilisation types. A
project is currently being prepared to design maps and
GIS to assist eleven western African countries affected by
onchocerchiasis. GIS also plays a central role in the estab-
lishment of a Global Livestock Geography, comprising the
International Archives of Photogrammerty and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part A. Amsterdam 2000.
