Overview of the Southern African Regional Science Initiative-SAFARI 2000

The Southern African Regional Science Initiative 2000 (SAFARI 2000) is an interdisciplinary science activity designed to increase our understanding of the southern African ecological and climatic systems as a whole, as well as its relationship to hemispheric and global climate. The project involves a confederation of national, regional, and global environmental research activities. NASA, through its EOS, Land Cover and Land Use Change, and Terrestrial Ecology Programs, is supporting several efforts in SAFARI 2000. These include an extensive validation component associated with the launch of the Earth Observing System (EOS) Terra and Landsat 7 platforms in 1999. SAFARI 2000 will address the key linkages between the physical, chemical and biological processes, including those due to human activities, that impact the functioning of the regional biogeophysical system. More specifically, it will help characterize and quantify the aerosol and trace gas sources and sinks, validate models and remote sensing observations of these processes and their systems, and determine the climatic, hydrological, and ecosystem consequences of these processes. Interest in the southern African region by the EOS validation community stems from two basic reasons: (1) there are unique scientific processes in the region which significantly influence climate and global change, and (2) EOS can leverage its validation activities off ongoing scientific investigations in the region, thereby providing maximum scientific return on limited resources.