The VGT4AFRICA project aims at setting up an operational and timely distribution system of VEGETATION data from the SPOT satellites and high level derived products to all African countries.

The goal is to produce and distribute operationally these products to a well identified user community in Africa (i.e. the PUMA network, that includes all national meteorological services of Africa, as well as regional institutions responsible for environmental monitoring) through the EUMETCAST telecommunication facility provided by EUMETSAT.

The project is lead by VITO whose one of the roles is to produce in near real time (a few hours after having completed the data acquisition) the products derived from VEGETATION and transmit them to EUMETSAT, which from that point assures the product distribution to the African PUMA network through the EUMETCAST telecommunication system.

The value-added products derived from VEGETATION are biogeophysical variables which describe the surface properties. They are conceived by :

  POSTEL / Medias-France : Leaf Area Index (LAI), fraction of vegetal cover (fCover) and albedo
  JRC : phenology, burnt areas, water bodies
  VITO : moisture index NDWI, vegetation index NDVI, dry matter productivity.

The role of the POSTEL Service Centre is to build the processing lines that the Service is responsible for, to test and validate them, and to provide the executable codes to VITO for implementation in the operational production and distribution device.