ARICA analysis of refugee/IDP camp areas

The Project's Geoplatform is now live! This state-of-the-art platform integrates geospatial and environmental analysis of refugee/IDP camp areas based on HR/VHR satellite data. It provides a better understanding of the spatial context of observed results and phenomena, with non-spatial data closely related to corresponding spatial outputs and easily accessible for platform users. 🛰 Camp Stories integrated in the platform bring a narrative dimension to environmental and socio-geographical analyses.
Explore the platform 👉 https://geoplatform-arica.gridw.pl
Project financed under Norway Grants the "Applied Research" program.

Centrum Badań Kosmicznych PAN / Space Research Centre PAS UNEP/GRID-Warszawa NORCE Centre of Migration Research
EEA and Norway Grants

On March 7-8, 2024, the third and last in-person meeting of the ARICA project was held. 🤝
Representatives of all project partners: CBK PAN, University of Warsaw, NORCE and UNEP/GRID-Warsaw met at the CBK PAN in Warsaw.
During the meeting, progress on the ARICA Online Geoplatform was discussed 💻, and next steps were determined. The initial user experiences were analyzed, changes were suggested, and key areas for development were identified. The upcoming meeting with experts, publications, and deliverables were also discussed.

Centrum Badań Kosmicznych PAN / Space Research Centre PAS Centre of Migration Research NORCE UNEP/GRID-Warszawa

On March 3rd, representatives of the ARICA project, CBK PAN and UW, visited the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest, the largest mangrove forest in the world. 🌳

Centrum Badań Kosmicznych PAN / Space Research Centre PAS Centre of Migration Research

At the beginning of March, representatives of the ARICA project, CBK PAN and UW, had the opportunity to travel to Bangladesh and participate in numerous meetings, both promoting the results of the ARICA project and deepening cooperation with Jagannath University. 🤝
The trip began with a visit in the Mirpur slum area on March 1st, where the participants became acquainted with the local issues and collected reference data for future potential geospatial analyses of this area. 🛰

Centrum Badań Kosmicznych PAN / Space Research Centre PAS Centre of Migration Research

At the beginning of march the representatives of ARICA consortium had the opportunity to visit external service providers from Bangladesh (Jagannath University) and participate in 2nd International Conference on Environment – Time for Nature and Natural Resource Management (Khulna University). The team has presented the ARICA project and work done in joint cooperation with EOTiST project. Vist has been concluded at the Jagannath University during the semminary dedicated to the ARICA Online Geoplatform.

UN Environment Programme Foresight Brief based on ARICA project is published!
👇👇
https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/44774

In early November, a representative of our project will speak at the CASSINI Hackathon in Krakow, Poland about the ARICA project. During the speach she will highlight the use of Copernicus data in a multi-directional analysis of refugee/IDP camp areas. 🛰️
For 3 days, hackathon participants will face the challenge of creating a unique business idea using satellite and navigation data, with an impact on global development and humanitarian aid. 🌏 The best team has a chance to win 10 000 PLN

More about the event 👉 https://www.cassini.eu/hackathons/

A series of meetings were held in Kigoma (Tanzania) within the agreement established between ARICA consortium and Danish Refugee Council.
We had the opportunity to present current project results as well as to show the benefits of using satellite data 🛰 for more efficient forest land 🌳 management.

See more👇:
https://arica.gridw.pl/en/news/tanzania-mission

Members of our team participated in the MigroStacja podcast (Polish 🇵🇱). They talked about changes in the natural environment, migrations, and how the scale of migration can affect the natural environment, also in the context of the ARICA project. We encourage you to listen! 👇🎧

Migracje środowiskowe Co roku kilkakrotnie więcej osób jest wysiedlanych ze względu na zjawiska przyrodnicze niż na skutek konfliktów zbrojnych. W 2021 r. wysiedlono blisko 24 mln...

Between the 15th and 17th of March 2023, the second live meeting of the ARICA project was held. Representatives of all project partners: CBK PAN, University of Warsaw, NORCE and UNEP/GRID-Warsaw met at the Centre of Migration Research in Warsaw.
During the meeting, the progress of the work was discussed, the upcoming challenges were analyzed and the plan for future tasks was set for implementation.

Centrum Badań Kosmicznych PAN / Space Research Centre PAS
Centre of Migration Research
NORCE
UNEP/GRID-Warszawa

😢
A massive fire 🔥 in the camp 9, 10 and 11.
🇧🇩

At the Wittgenstein Centre Conference 2022 Population And Climate Change: The Defining Relationship of the 21st Century our team presented a poster on the role of remote sensing data in mitigation of the impact of the establishment and development of refugee camps on the natural environment – examples from Bangladesh 🇧🇩 and Tanzania 🇹🇿.
The poster presents the most common and essential activities that lead to anthropogenic environmental changes in refugee camps and their surroundings as well as preliminary recommendations to improve the negative influence of such activities.

Extended abstract 👉 https://go.gridw.pl/1r1Vza8
Poster in PDF 👉 https://go.gridw.pl/pC88RQs

On our site you will find dozens of interesting photos from our field trip to Bangladesh 🇧🇩
👉 https://arica.gridw.pl/en/news/field-trip-to-bangladesh

🇧🇩

Our fieldwork in Bangladesh 🇧🇩 is completed.
Almost 3 weeks in Dhaka and Cox's Bazar District, over 30 in-depth interviews with experts, inhabitants of the Kutupalong-Balukhali Camp and host community members living in or in the close proximity to the camp, collection of the photographs helping to visualise area of the camp and its surroundings, hours of fruitful conversations, exchanges of views, opinions and much more.

We would like to thank all interviewees who agreed to participate in the project and shared their knowledge and experience, our incredible interpreters and those who helped us to facilitate our stay in Bangladesh 🇧🇩 and of course our fantastic partners from the Jagannath University - জগন্নাথ বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়, who made our stay not only a fruitful research but also an unforgettable experience.

Thank you all !!!

Photo: debrief meeting at the Jagannath University - জগন্নাথ বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়

In July our team was on a field trip to Tanzania 🇹🇿, to better understand the on-ground conditions, the social and environmental impacts and source of changes. 🌍
They observed and took a lot of interesting photographs of environmental impacts, like agriculture development de-and-reforestation, charcoal production, bush fires and infrastructure development.
You can see some of them below 👇

At the Living Planet Symposium 2022 in Bonn, Germany on 23–27 May 2022 our team presented a poster with the preliminary results of the ARICA project, on investigating the mutual impact between refugee camps and their environment with Sentinel-1&2 time-series.
The poster shows S1- and S2-based overviews of the Kaya (South-Sudan), IFO-2 (Kenya) and Khanke (Iraq) camp surroundings and some first thematic analysis from the Mtendeli (Tanzania) and Kutupalong (Bangladesh) camps.

For more details go to ResearchGate 👇
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361163980_Investigating_the_mutual_impact_between_refugee_camps_and_their_environment_with_Sentinel-12_time-series_-Preliminary_results_of_the_ARICA_project

🇧🇩

A multi-temporal Sentinel-1 and ALOS PALSAR composite around the Ifo2 Refugee Camp in Kenya.

Satellite images taken nine years apart (2012 and 2021), that show the land cover changes in the area of Ifo2 refugee camp in Kenya.

See more! 👇👇
https://arica.gridw.pl/en/news/environmental-changes-analysis-image-of-the-month-march

Every day of our work we look towards distant regions where people in camps for refugees and internally displaced persons are facing crisis. Yet the need for humanitarian aid can affect us all in an instant. If you are looking for ways to help Ukraine and its people, we provide links to verified fundraisers:

🇺🇦 UNICEF Polska https://www.facebook.com/unicefpolska/posts/10158711221256545
🇺🇦 Polska Akcja Humanitarna https://www.siepomaga.pl/pah-ukraina
🇺🇦 Polskie Centrum Pomocy Międzynarodowej https://pcpm.org.pl/wesprzyj-pcpm