GIS / Remote Sensing Advisor – Land Use Mapping

Position: GIS / Remote Sensing Advisor – Land Use Mapping (Landscape component) (National individual consultant)

1. Background

The USAID Vietnam Forest and Deltas Program is embarking upon a five-year effort that will support four provinces to accelerate their transition to climate resilient, low emissions development through investments in reducing net emissions from forests, and enhancing resiliency of people, places, and livelihoods in the delta regions to short and long-term climate impacts. In collaboration with MARD, the Program will support Payments for Forest Ecosystem Service payments through programs to build capacity, distribute equitable benefits and for
monitoring environmental services.

2. Objectives

The aim of consulting services (‘the Services’) include the following contents:

• to supervise contracted organizations and consultants undertaking forest and agriculture
• mapping to ensure data quality control of ongoing consultant missions mapping forests
• and agriculture in Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces;
• to provide technical advice and expertise to ensure the quality and effectiveness of surveys;
• to ensure that teams are working together to use similar / consistent methods, final GIS
• results following the database standard of VFD, to avoid conflicting data sets.

3. Tasks

The consultant will be mainly responsible for the quality assurance and supervise the forest and agriculture mapping activities in Thanh Hoa and Nghe An. In addition, the consultant will be in-charge of following tasks:

• To provide GIS and mapping services, as appropriate, regards analysis of spatial data; remote sensing analysis;
• To provide advice on integration of forestry and non-forestry data, mapping and remote sensing to assist VFD activities;
• To provide training materials and training services in data analysis, GPS, GIS, remote sensing for local counterparts, as appropriate;
• To supervise and provide technical advice for land surveys;
• To support the GIS capacity building/training for provincial stakeholders with consultant teams;
• To work closely with GIS specialist for metadata standard development and database management;
• To undertake any other duty as requested by Line Manager (Team Leader – Sustainable Landscapes);

4. Outputs and deliverables

• Report on consultant tasks;
• Softcopy of GIS database from forest and non-forest consultant teams that should meets VFD requirements; and other GIS data processed as required;
• Training guidelines on RS/GIS for local partners as appropriate;

5. Line Manager

The GIS advisor will report to Team Leader – Sustainable Landscape component; and in consultation with VFD GIS Specialist.

6. Qualifications, Experiences of Consultant

6.1 Master or Doctorate degree in forestry, GIS and / or remote sensing or natural resources
6.2 At least 10 years proven experience in forest cover and agriculture mapping, and data collection;
6.3 Familiarity with government land use classifications and categories, forest and agriculture mapping methodologies, and links to relevant institutions is required;
6.4 Demonstrated experience in supervision of data collection programs is advantageous;
6.5 Expertise in database management, specifically in MS Access and MS Excel;
6.6 Experience in radar is a plus;
6.7 Capacity using RS and GIS software is a must, such as eCognition, ERDAS, ArcGIS and MapInfo;
6.8 Expert in capacity building and training local partners in GIS and Remote Sensing;
6.9 Proficient in English.

7. Time and duration

The consultant is expected to work in 5-6 man-month over 12 months, starting from late-May, 2014.

S/he is required to attend the bi-weekly meeting with consultancy teams and 2-3 days/month to work at VFD office.

Total time: maximum 120 days.

8. How to apply

Interested candidates should send applications to the following address:

[email protected] no later than May 23th, 2014 with letter of interest, CV and three references.

Please place “RS/GIS advisor – Land Use Mapping” in the subject line.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interview.