Satellites are helping to predict favourable conditions for desert locusts to swarm, which poses a threat to agricultural production and, subsequently, livelihoods and food Security.
Satellites can monitor the conditions that can lead to swarming locusts, such as soil moisture and green vegetation. ESA recently teamed up with international partners from Algeria, France, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Spain and the Food and agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to test how data from satellites such as ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission – or SMOS – can be used to predict locust plagues. Read more.
