Welcome to SMELLS project homepage
High resolution soil moisture is critically needed for the improvement of forecasts and early warning of a variety of plagues. SMELLS is an Innovators-III project funded by ESA to develop innovative EO products and services in response to authoritative requirements from end-user organisations.
Specifically, this project addresses the use of soil moisture to preventive management of Desert locust Schistocerca gregaria (Forskål, 1775), whose plagues have threatened agricultural production in Africa, the Middle East and Asia for centuries and regularly affect up to one-tenth of the world’s human population. Preventive management aims to prevent or to limit crop damage by controlling populations before they can reach high densities and form mass migrating swarms.
SMELLS brings together a consortium of EO specialist, locust ecologist and Desert locust management institutions.