Desert Locust Monitoring in Saudi Arabia and Yemen in 2024/4(Spatial resolution-500m)

In April 2024, there was a decrease in rainfall along the Red Sea coast in southwestern Saudi Arabia, which was not conducive to the breeding and reproduction of desert locusts. Additionally, due to control efforts, the population of desert locusts in this area experienced a slight decline. The monitoring results showed that in April, the total damaged vegetation area was 13.3 thousand hectares in Saudi Arabia, including 2.7 thousand hectares of cropland, 4.3 thousand hectares of grassland, and 6.3 thousand hectares of shrub (Figure 1), accounting for 1.23%, 0.22%, and 0.15% of the total area of the cropland, grassland, and shrub, respectively. Jizan experienced the most extensive impact, with 7.7 thousand hectares of vegetation affected, followed by Makkah, with 4.5 thousand hectares. Additionally, the affected area in Asīr was 1.1 thousand hectares.