SPACE scientists in Oxfordshire have won a share of £152m funding to help fishermen, farmers and flood-hit communities in developing countries.

The UK Space Agency has handed out cash to nine county organisations helping use space science on international projects.

Among them is Wallingford's CABI which is leading a project using satellites to monitor and map pest outbreaks on crops in Africa.

The aim is to help smallholder farmers stop using inappropriate pesticides and move towards 'targeted spraying' to benefit humans and the environment.

The CABI team will use the Space Agency funding to create an early-warning system for pest outbreaks using 'crowd-sourced' observations.

Harwell's Satellite Applications Catapult, meanwhile, won a share of funding towards four projects it is currently working on around the globe.

The include an initiative to help sustainable fishing in Indonesia and another to help track national disasters in the Philippines.

Oxford Policy Management, based in Cornmarket Street in the city centre, is helping run a project to monitor droughts and floods in Uganda which won funding.

Oxford University is assisting with a separate flood and drought resilience project in Africa being led by Airbus which also won Space Agency funding.