Remote Sensing and GIS Specialist, Rome, Italy
Organization: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Country: Italy
City: Rome, Italy
Office: FAO Rome
Closing date: Wednesday, 24 February 2021
CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST - VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT : 2100365
REMOTE SENSING AND GIS SPECIALIST
Job Posting: 03/Feb/2021
Closure Date: 24/Feb/2021, 10:59:00 PM
Organizational Unit : NSL
Job Type: Non-staff opportunities
Type of Requisition : Consultant / PSA (Personal Services Agreement)
Grade Level : N/A
Primary Location: Italy-Rome
Duration : Variable
Post Number : N/A
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please note that Closure Date and Time displayed above are based on date and time settings of your personal device
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
Organizational Setting
The Land and Water Division (NSL) 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 Consultants will work under the overall technical supervision of the Head of the Geospatial Unit of the Land and Water Division (NSL), in collaboration with IT Service Division (CSI). 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, agro-ecological zoning, ecosystem monitoring, hydrological modeling, watershed assessment and disaster risk reduction;
Support in-country geospatial data preparation for image pre-processing of satellite data, including mosaicking, stacking, atmospheric corrections, object-based-image-analysis (OBIA) for segmentation and classification of land cover datasets;
Contribute to the development of high-resolution national land cover datasets according to the LCML/LCCS ISO standard specifications, including validation and accuracy assessments;
Support the development of area frame methodology, integrated area and list frame methodologies for agricultural, land and water monitoring systems, including stratification, selection of sites for field data collection/validation;
Provide technical support to countries for assessing the vulnerability, disaster risk reduction planning and management, the impacts of natural hazards (drought, flood, fires, landslides) as well as the recovery, monitoring and evaluation of activities;
Contribute, provide technical inputs and develop integrated approaches in support to international, regional and national platforms for earth observation, land cover monitoring, agro-ecological zoning, land evaluation, ecosystem monitoring, disaster risk reduction management;
Support the capacity development plans on geospatial technologies, including preparation of training and workshop material, preparation of information for meeting and conferences;
Support the collation, standardization, analysis and reporting of geospatial data from multiple sources in support to the FAO Hand-in-Hand initiative;
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;
Perform any other tasks required.
CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING
Minimum Requirements
Advanced university degree in GIS, Geography, Environmental Sciences or related field;
At least one year of 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 or Spanish, and limited knowledge of one of the other two or Arabic, Chinese or Russian (for Consultants). Working knowledge of English (for PSA.SBS).
Selection criteria
FAO Core Competencies
Tags capacity development continuous improvement data collection data processing data scientist development plans disaster risk disaster risk reduction environmental sciences geographic information geographic information systems image analysis information systems knowledge sharing land use monitoring and evaluation natural resources remote sensing spatial data transparency
Results Focus
Teamwork
Communication
Building Effective Relationships
Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement
Selection Criteria
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 (e.g. SEPAL, Google Earth Engine)
Work experience on geo-statistical packages for automatic classifications
Work experience on batch-scripting for data processing
Work experience with data scientist packages
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
Capacity to report results to different audiences.
Please note that all candidates should adhere to FAO Values of Commitment to FAO, Respect for All and Integrity and Transparency
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
FAO does not charge any fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview, processing)
Please note that FAO will only consider academic credentials or degrees obtained from an educational institution recognized in the IAU/UNESCO list If you are in possession of language certificate/s from UN accredited external providers and/or FAO language official examinations (LPE, ILE, LRT), please attach the certificate/s when submitting the application.
For more information, visit the FAO employment website
HOW TO APPLY
To apply, visit the recruitment website at Jobs at FAO and complete your online profile. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Only applications received through the recruitment portal will be considered.
We encourage applicants to submit the application well before the deadline
If you need help please contact: Careers@fao.org
