AUGMENTING HYPERSPECTRAL REMOTE SENSING/IMAGE SPECTROSCOPY (HRS/IS) LIBRARIES TO ADDRESS HUMANITARIAN IMMIGRATION ISSUES IN AFRICA

Environmental degradation associated with climate change combined with numerous political and economic pressures and an increasing number of conflicts create major human migration issues across many African countries. Understanding these environments in the context of humanitarian accountability and actions is critical as criminal activity at various scales occurs. Hyperspectral remote sensing/image spectroscopy (HRS/IS) is a tool that can be used to understand the nature and distribution of migration routes, termination points, and event locations. Key to improving HRS/IS tools is the development of detailed spectral libraries that can be used to identify objects and people in African environments. Human materials and associated items exhibit a range of spectral properties as a function of age and exposure. This study investigates a collection of materials associated with African migrants from known points of origin (purposely undisclosed to preserve evidence contexts) using an ASD Fieldspec 4 spectroradiometer. The ASD will capture variation leading to the ability to catalog and partially classify materials. Analog materials from previous work were used to compare the African materials. Many humans and associated materials can be differentiated from analog geologic background materials. Variation exists in spectral signatures of some items owing to probable exposure caused by UV radiation. Age estimation of human materials and some associated items may be possible in some contexts. Building extensive spectral libraries on materials from known contexts from migration routes likely captures nuances and features that are not evident or differ in unmodified analogs sourced outside of Africa. This investigation forms a basis for a detailed construction of libraries for HRS/IS investigations in African contexts but also broadens content for investigations of human migration and broad-scale criminal activity to some degree in analog regions. Future investigations will aim to gather spectra globally in addition to more African locations and to develop improved age estimation approaches. Such efforts may support accountability and provide time-scale contexts for scenes relating to migration routes, termination points, and event locations.