Great Zimbabwe University

Department of Physics Geography and Environmental Science

14/ 01/2016

Status of the usage of the ZIMcast Station.

Dear Geert

Complements of the new year from everyone here and again thank you for your efforts towards our acquiring of the EUMETCast Receiving Station.

Our station is very much fully operational and like you rightly pointed out, we are still exploring and learning a lot about the capabilities of the station. The quality of the signal is ok it averages around 53 %. We are also receiving the EO products in good order.

The products from the station are already being used to teach certain modules like applied remote sensing and practical components of modules like natural resources management, Hydrology, climate change, environmental impact assessment etc. We are still exploring ways of using the products in other modules across the University.

So far we have had five undergraduate students doing their dissertations using mainly products from the EUMETCast station. To date we also have done capacity building and awareness of the EUMETcast station and its products around the south eastern parts of Zimbabwe, since it is the only station installed outside Harare. In capacity building, we managed to orient and train members of staff from the Sustainable Agriculture Technology (SAT) on the use and station products. We also want to orient and train some members of staff from other faculties in the University on how they can use some of the products from the station to enrich their research activities.

As a department we are also in the process of coming up with products and monthly bulletins that that will be published on the University website. The products will be relevant to the community, farmers and industry e.g. fire monitoring, fire risk assessments, drought monitoring, flood hazard monitoring, agriculture and rangeland monitoring.

Many thanks

David