From November 6th to 10th, 2023, the GEO WEEK 2023 was held in Cape Town, South Africa. The head of the GEO project 'Global Vegetation Pest and Disease Dynamic Remote Sensing Monitoring and Forecasting' (GEO-PDRS), Professor Huang Wenjiang from the Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and key team member Dr. Liu Linyi, were invited to attend the conference.

The conference selected three award-winning teams from around the world based on significant impact achievements in areas such as Earth observation technology serving global sustainable development. The GEO-PDRS team, led by Researcher Huang Wenjiang, was honored with the 2023 GEO Team Impact Award. The GEO-PDRS team is the only award-winning team from Asia. The other recipients of this award include the GEOGLAM team, led by Ian Jarvis from the United States, and the GEO Blue Planet team, led by Lilian Diarra from France. The GEO-PDRS team focuses on major global epidemic and migratory vegetation pests and diseases. They utilize multi-source data from remote sensing, meteorology, agriculture and ecology. By integrating technologies such as big data analysis and information mining, they have established a global vegetation pests and diseases remote sensing monitoring and forecasting system. The products generated by this system cover 19 major pests and diseases in 38 major grain-producing countries worldwide. The achievements have been adopted over 220 times by various government ministries, including the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, as well as industry institutions and enterprises. Furthermore, they have been embraced by international organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, GEO, and the Global Biodiversity Information Network (GBIF). The system supports scientific pest and disease control over an area exceeding 500 million mu, resulting in a reduction of pesticide usage by approximately 30% and an increase in species richness by about 10%.

GEO-PDRS project team receives 2023 GEO Team Impact Award

The monitoring and forecasting achievements of GEO-PDRS for major global migratory and
epidemic vegetation pests and diseases