Locust Habitat Monitoring and Risk Assessment Using Remote Sensing and GIS Technologies

Coupling historical prospection data and a remotely-sensed vegetation index for the preventative control of Desert locusts

“…Remote sensing is increasingly used in high-risk locust outbreak areas to estimate the timing and location of favorable weather events (rainfall, runoff) that normally precede the build up of solitarious populations and subsequent gregarization (Ceccato, Cressman, Giannini, & Trzaska 2007;Latchininsky & Sivanpillai 2010;Showler 2002). The resulting habitat conditions can quickly lead, in the next generation, to the formation of migratory hopper bands and swarms if local densities are sufficient.…”

Locusts and remote sensing: a review

“…[90][91][92][93][94][95][101][102][103][104] Applications to other locusts range from scarce to nonexistent. 47 Therefore, after a period of over-enthusiastic claims and views of the remote sensing as a panacea for solving locust problems, the research reports in the beginning of the 2000s sounded more cautious, if not skeptical. 149,150 Yet the satellite data and associated GIS are believed to be very powerful instruments in the arsenal of locust managers, especially if accompanied by thorough ground work.…”

“…Indeed, over the last three decades, satellite imagery is increasingly applied to locust monitoring (Ref. 47 and references therein). After the pioneer studies by Pedgley 44 and Hielkema, 45,64 remote sensing has been used for finding and mapping emerging vegetation in the desert to help monitor and forecast the desert locust 50,56,66,68,69 and the Australian plague locust.…”

“…46 Since then, there is a substantial body of publications on the subject (see Ref. 47 for review and references therein). The use of satellite data over vast areas in combination with GIS significantly improved locust forecasting and risk assessment.…”

Satellite-based monitoring system for assessment of vegetation vulnerability to locust hazard in the River Ili delta (Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan)

“…Remote sensing techniques have been applied for mapping potential locust habitats, forecasting infestation by locusts, and postdamage assessment in different regions. 17 At the scales from local to subregional, data of fine spatial resolution from multispectral sensors onboard the Landsat satellites have commonly been used for mapping of locust habitats. [18][19][20] Coarse-and medium-spatial resolution data sets with global coverage originating from a number of satellite systems such as advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR), satellite pure observation d'Tierra (SPOT), and moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) have become available to the scientific community for all thinkable applications in recent years.…”