REMOTE SENSING AND GIS SPECIALIST

Home Based - May require travel

Organization: FAO - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Location: Home Based - May require travel
Grade: Level not specified - Level not specified
Occupational Groups:
- Engineering
- Meteorology, Geology and Geography
- Agriculture and Forestry
- Population matters (trends and census)
- CBDS
Closing Date: Closed

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FAO is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender and nationality

People with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply

All applications will be treated with the strictest confidentiality

The incumbent may be re-assigned to different activities and/or duty stations

depending on the evolving needs of the Organization

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Organizational Setting

The Climate, Biodiversity, Land and Water Department (CB) provides strategic direction and coordinates FAO’s work on climate adaptation and mitigation, and the sustainable management of natural resources in order to raise profile, strengthen FAO’s work, and enhance its capacity to address these issues in an effective and coordinated manner, and to contribute to ensuring the corporate environment needed for delivering the Organization's strategic objectives, core functions and organizational results.

Contracts will be based in FAO HQ (or other location) with required travel for field missions, where relevant.

Reporting Lines

The Consultant will work under the overall technical supervision of the CBDS Senior Environment Officer of the Geospatial Unit. When activities are carried out in countries, the consultant will be required to work in close collaboration with the FAO Representation in the relevant country of assignment, as well as the relevant FAO regional office.

Technical Focus

Geographic Information Systems/Remote Sensing

Tasks and responsibilities

List of the tasks that the consultant will undertake include\:

Technical assessment and identification of the most suitable satellite imagery and geospatial datasets to support the needs of the unit for operational national agricultural monitoring systems, land cover and land use assessments, climate change and adaptation, and disaster risk reduction;
Image pre-processing of satellite data, including mosaicking, stacking, atmospheric corrections.
Object-based-image-analysis (OBIA) for segmentation and classification of land cover datasets
Develop of land cover legend according to the LCML/LCCS ISO standard specifications
Implementation of the FAO GLCN production chain for development of high-resolution national land cover datasets, including validation and accuracy assessments;
Support the development of area frame methodology for agricultural monitoring systems, including stratification, selection of sites for field data collection/validation;
Impact assessments of natural hazards (drought, flood, fires, landslides)
Assessment and monitoring of natural resources using geospatial technologies (biodiversity, landscape, ecosystems services)
Agro-Ecological Zoning (AEZ) and Land resource Information systems applications
Develop a land resource information geodatabases for soil, climate, land, terrain and agricultural information to support LRIMS and AEZ implementation;
Manage and organize geospatial data including metadata preparation;
Crop productivity and suitability modelling
Disaster risk reduction planning and management; impact assessment analysis; vulnerability analysis on different ecosystems; ecosystem-based adaptations.
Assist in data modelling and develop workflows for batch-processing;
Support the capacity development plans on geospatial technologies, including preparation of training and workshop material;
Support preparation of information for meeting and conferences;
Disseminate the geospatial data and metadata produced, in the various media formats (e.g. digital and paper atlas, map layouts, posters)
Prepare technical and scientific reports, papers and guidelines describing the activities, results, conclusions and recommendations on the process and results.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

Advanced university degree (for consultants), University Degree (ONLY for PSA) in GIS, Environmental Sciences or related field ;
At least one year of work experience for base level consultant or at least five years for middle level consultants in spatial data handling and analysis, satellite data processing and management, GIS and remote sensing applications of for land resources evaluation and/other natural resources studies, development of methodology in the field of agricultural/environmental monitoring (knowledge of land cover FAO methodology will be an asset) and technical report writing and/or preparation of workshop and training materials;
Working knowledge of English, French, Spanish or Chinese and limited knowledge of one of the other three or Arabic, Russian (for consultants); Working knowledge of English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese or Russian (For PSAs)

FAO Core Competencies

Results Focus
Teamwork
Communication
Building Effective Relationships
Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

Work experience in International Organizations and in projects supporting developing Countries
Work experience on geospatial data and metadata management and processing
Work experience on image analysis
Work experience on cloud-computing platforms
Work experience on geo-statistical packages for automatic classifications
Work experience on issues related to land evaluation or land use management and planning
Experience on natural resources management
Familiarity with the tools of FAO’s Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) standard.