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As part of its strategy to enhance the sustainability of the environment, agriculture and livestock sectors, and achieving the food diversity system, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment has completed the first phase of its research project to use remote sensing and air surveying techniques for agricultural areas, with the aim of monitoring its data and information in a detailed and accurate manner, at the level of Dubai and the Northern Emirates using Drones.
The first phase of the project included surveying and recording data for a set of key indicators that include buildings, protected crops, fruit trees, shade and ornamental trees, cultivated areas, farms, animals, and water structures, which fall under 41 sub-statistical statements, in an area of ??550 km Square distributed in the emirates of Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman and Umm Al Quwain.
The Ministry had launched the project in its experimental phase in August 2018, in the Wadi Al-Aim region in the Emirate of Ras Al-Khaimah, within the framework of enhancing reliance on innovation, and employing the latest global technologies in support of the countrys march towards achieving sustainability, and to provide a database and statistical information with high efficiency and accuracy contributing to Supporting decision-making and drawing future plans and strategies.
Commenting on the project, His Excellency Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al-Zyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, said: “The Ministry aims, in accordance with its general vision, to achieve environmental leadership for sustainable development, in line with and contributing to achieving the goals of the Emirates Vision 2021 and the UAE Centennial 2071, and through its strategy works to achieve sustainability in the sectors Its subsidiary, the most important of which is the environment, agriculture, livestock and fisheries, in a way that ensures the achievement of the food diversity system at the country level. "
His Excellency added: "The air survey project for agricultural areas through drone technologies comes as an important and supportive step to developing an integrated statistical data base that contributes primarily to supporting decision-making processes and drawing future policies and strategies, and also helps in developing the agricultural extension system."
His Excellency Dr. Al-Zyoudi pointed out that the implementation of the project that relies on unmanned aircraft technologies in the air survey of the agricultural sector will place the UAE among the five best countries in the world in terms of the area that is surveyed using these technologies, and will be the first country in the world to use this technology in measuring And he surveyed many statistical data, which amount to more than 41 statistical data.
His Excellency revealed that the second phase of the survey, which will include the emirates of Fujairah and Ras Al-Khaimah, will be implemented in the period from October to the end of next December.
The surveys in the first phase of the project concluded that there are a total number of 5637 farms, of which 895 are vegetable plants, 2919 animal farms, and the number of fruit trees is about 35,535 trees, and the number of trees used as windbreaks is 200230, and the number of establishments (buildings) is 5637 Workers housing - animal sheds - stores ... other), and the number of water wells is 362 wells, and the number of protected farms is 3447, of which 2,635 have a net cover, and the number of Ghaf trees in these farms reached 73344 trees.
The Ministry has strengthened the survey project in its second phase with modern techniques of artificial intelligence, to ensure the preparation of comprehensive analyzes of the data collected to enhance decision-making processes at the environmental sector level.
The information and data provided by the air surveys will contribute to increasing the ability to predict the level and size of agricultural and animal productivity and work to achieve self-sufficiency for some species, and to enhance the countrys food diversity.
It will also help encourage many family owners of farms and families to switch from limited production to commercial production, by knowing agricultural productivity and drawing future plans to market this production so as to support high profitability for farmers.
It will contribute to developing and increasing the efficiency of the agricultural extension project, raising the quality of livestock breeding operations, identifying the quality of the soil and its health to ensure abundance of production and setting the necessary plans to increase it, identifying plant diseases and injuries with a view to developing pest control plans and drawing future plans to prevent their occurrence.
It will contribute to protecting biological diversity and ensuring its sustainability by identifying the fruit trees, their age and gathering places, and reaching the optimum employment of support and services provided to citizens of the farmers to achieve the highest returns from them, and will benefit in supporting the national project for environmental tourism "treasures of nature in the Emirates" by identifying tourist farms.
The data will contribute to maintaining the groundwater reserves by identifying the irrigation methods used in the farms, which may give a clear picture of the quantities of water used in agriculture, and therefore the necessary plans are drawn up to provide suitable water sources for farm owners in order to reduce pressure on the groundwater and achieve the sustainability of the irrigation system.
It is intended that the project, upon completion of the state in general, will achieve a strong reinforcement in achieving the goals of sustainable development and optimal exploitation of natural resources, support efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in some agricultural products, and open markets for their export abroad, in addition to strengthening research studies to measure the effects of climate change on agricultural production These include estimating the amount of carbon dioxide emissions associated with this sector, forecasting the volume of agricultural waste and how it is treated, recycled and converted into valuable products. |
