Algeria

In recent years, Algeria and other parts of Northern Africa, Europe, Asia, and America have been impacted by forest fires. Unfortunately, in July 2023, severe forest fires again impacted several regions of Algeria, killing around 30 people, including firefighting officers and injuring others. The General Directorate of Forest of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Algeria has noted that in recent years, wildfires have become more frequent and intense, and now talk about mega-fires, which unfortunately, consume forests at a faster rate than in previous years, making it difficult to combat them.

As commented by Dr. Fethi Benhamouda, Director of Research at the Algerian Space Agency (ASAL), space technologies contribute to the mapping of the geographical extent and front of fires that may be active so that firefighters can develop a strategy to combat them and use their resources in a more optimal fashion; and once the fire has been extinguished, such space...

The Algerian Space Agency (ASAL), Regional Support Office of UN-SPIDER, has monitored the forest fires occurred during July thanks to its satellite Alsat-2A. It has helped to evaluate the impact over the affected region.

During the month of July, several forest fires took place in the provinces of Tizi Ouzou and Bejaia, which are mountainous areas covered with sparse forests. The Alsat-2A satellite provided an image from July 25 that has helped to determine the reach of the disaster and its impact over the vegetation.

Alsat-2A, the second ASAL’s Earth observation satellite, is successfully working since 2010 and reached its five years in orbit in June 2015. During this time, it has been constantly supporting disaster prevention and management. 

ALSAT-2A, the optical Earth observation satellite of the Algerian Space Agency (ASAL), Regional Support Office of UN-SPIDER, reached five years in orbit on July 12.

After these successful five years, it will continue developing observation activities, providing panchromatic images with 2,5m resolution and multispectral images with 10m resolution.

Since the launch of ALSAT-2A in 2010 on a PSLV launcher (PSLV-C15) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, India, the satellite has provided more than 120,000 Earth observation images, covering a total of more than 8 493 millions km2. The coverage over Algeria represents almost the 50% of the totality and the whole African continent reaches 73,5%.

Early warning, disaster management and emergency response have been some of the most important activities developed by ALSAT-2A during these five years. 

Through satellite-bases research, the Algerian Space Agency ASAL has found a positive vegetation recovering of the forest areas located in the Aïn Témouchent province after the damages caused by wildfires in 2014.

The forest fires of summer 2014 devastated around 180 hectares, with Beni Ghenam being the most affected region, as Algérie1 reported. The main cause of the fires was human negligent behaviour while visiting the forests.

The analysis and comparison of images compiled by the Alsat-2A satellite in August 2014 and March 2015 has shown a growing chlorophyll activity related to the increase of vegetation along the burned areas.

This result helps to better understand the process of forest recovery after wildfires by assessing the presence of green biomass. 

ASAL also hosts UN-SPIDER's Regional Support Office in...

UN-SPIDER’s Regional Support Office in Algeria, the Algerian Space Agency, has recently published the results of bi-phase satellite observations on the towns of El Tarf and El Kala and their surroundings. The goal was to monitor urban sprawl and land use changes that might impact on the environment.

Based on the earth observation satellite imagery, a diachronic analysis using images of Alsat-2A (from two dates: 8 April 2011 and 11 June 2014) was conducted as an effective way of mapping changes in the urban and natural environments. This method of observation highlighted significant changes in construction of infrastructures and dwelling in both cities.

Furthermore, in Oubeira Lake the first stage of eutrophication was detected, a disproportional proliferation of aquatic plants and Lake nutrient, caused by industrial waste and pollution and leading to the reduction of oxygen in water.

Specially, the value of this...

Within the framework of its collaboration with the Algerian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Algerian Space Agency (ASAL) - host to one of UN-SPIDER's Regional Support Offices - has mapped potential locust reproduction zones in the South of Algeria and the North-East of Mauritania. The experts analyzed the ecological conditions of the migratory locust for the period between 18 January and 3 February 2014. This activity was carried out at the request of the National Institute of Protection of Vegetation (INPV), which is in charge of fighting the locust infestation at the national level.

Thirteen satellite images with medium resolution (22 m), supplied by the British Disaster Monitoring Constellation UK-DMC-2, were processed for the maps. These images covered a total area of 935 671 square km...

On 6 May 2013, Mazlan Othman, director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, together with Mustapha Lahbiri, General Direction of Civilian Protection (DGPC), and Oussedik Azzedine, Director General of the Algerian Space Agency (ASAL) official inaugurated the UN-SPIDER Regional Support Office hosted by ASAL. DGPC and ASAL work closely together regarding satellite-based remote sensing for disaster response and disaster risk reduction.

"The Algerian Regional Support Office has an important role not only in Algeria but also to become a leader and a source of knowledge in the whole region, either defined as Northern Africa, French Africa or African Mediterranean countries. This role, however, comes with responsibilities for ASAL, including about the quality of the services and about ensuring the long term sustainability of the RSO," said Mazlan Othman on the occasion of the inauguration.

A Regional Support Office is a regional or national centre of...

The maps requested via the International Charter: Space and Major Disasters regarding the wildfires that ravaged north Algerian forests during summer 2012, are now available on the Charter's website.

An estimated 20,000 hectares of land have been ravaged by forest fires in the north of Algeria since June. These are a result of hotter than average summer heat waves that have been reported to reach as high as 50 degrees Celsius.

The maps produced by UNITAR/UNOSAT represent density of fire events in North Algeria between 1 June and 23 August 2012 and fire scars as of 18 August 2012. They are accompanied by graphs representing a complete history of MODIS fire detections from an aggregate of the Charter area of interest, summarized by daily total fire detections during 1 January 2000 - 23 August 2012.

The International Charter: Space and Major Disasters was activated on 13 August 2012 to provide satellite imagery for the forest fires that have been ravaging the north of Algeria since June. They are a result of hotter than average summer heat waves that have been reported to reach as high as 50 degrees Celsius. Three people have been reported killed in the fires, two of which were a firefighter and forest worker attempting to put out a blaze. Over 100 fires were reportedly still in progress as of 8 August.

The Charter was activated by the Algerian Civil Protection Agency on behalf of the Algerian Space Agency, host of one of UN-SPIDER's Regional Support Offices.

The Alsat-2A satellite built by Astrium for the Algerial Space Agency (ASAL) has now been in orbit for one year. Since its launch on 12 July 2010 it has been providing 2.5m resolution imagery of extremely high quality.

ALSAT-2 is the first Earth observation satellite from Astrium’s AstroSat100 product line, based on the Myriade platform, also comprising the first flight model of the new NAOMI optical instrument.

The contract covered design and development of two identical satellites: the first, ALSAT-2A, was built, integrated and tested by Astrium. The second, ALSAT-2B, will be built in Algeria by ASAL engineers.

The two-satellite system is enabling Algeria to obtain very high quality images for use in a wide variety of applications, including cartography, management of agriculture, forestry, water, mineral and oil resources, crop protection, management of natural disasters and land planning.