ACSAD organization // Conference for the land degradation monitoring project in the State of Kuwait.
The Director-General of the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Drylands (ACSAD), Dr. Nasr Edin Obaid, called for following up the work on the project agreement for monitoring and estimating land degradation in the State of Kuwait, implementing the rest of the agreements signed between the two parties and overcome the circumstances imposed by the Corona pandemic. He confirmed that ACSAD’s capabilities and expertise at the disposal of the concerned national institutions in the State of Kuwait.
During his chairmanship of the Virtual Conference for “the project of monitoring and Estimating of Land Degradation in the State of Kuwait,” which was held by ACSAD on 16/11/2020, in the presence of a selection of relevant experts from ACSAD and the Public Authority of Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources; he pointed out to the applied and scientific activities importance of the project’s events and transfer of ACSAD expertise to the scientific Kuwaiti’s cadres in the fields of software installation and data downloading, and ACSAD methodology in the integration between remote sensing technologies and fieldwork in land degradation assessment, survey methods, pastoral plant measurements, and the ACSAD method in vegetation survey.
Dr. Obaid stressed the importance of field training for Kuwaiti cadres in Wildland and rangelands on methods and procedures for field investigations of land degradation, methods for plant cover measurements, training them in preparing land degradation maps, and handling the results of fieldwork and projecting it on maps. Then how to prepare field surveys and investigation of land degradation and plant cover in hot areas.
The Director-General of the Arab Center (ACSAD), Dr. Nasr Edin Obeid, praised the cooperation between ACSAD and the State of Kuwait, represented by the Public Authority of Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources. He noted the important consequences resulting from it, stressing that the State of Kuwait always keens to support and strengthen the specialized Arab organizations, especially ACSAD, which is concerned with the scientific, technological, and applied aspects that contribute to the development of the Arab arid and semi-arid regions.
The participants in the conference reviewed the main components of the project, and the implemented work, such as the interpretation of satellite images, the preparation of initial maps, the discussion of the selection mechanism for land degradation’s field monitoring points, the preparation of new satellite images according to project requirements, in addition to the training course on land degradation and botanical surveys, the formation of fieldwork teams, and activate the social-economic study component.
It was agreed to reschedule project activities that were delayed in accordance to the Corona pandemic, continuity of work under the project’s activities agenda, the participation of ACSAD experts in field surveys when necessary and as permitted by the Corona pandemic, and approval of training a Kuwaiti working team to conduct the socio-economic study of the project.
