Jetske Bouma, Peter Verburg

WP10: Environmental Monitoring to Support Agricultureco-leads: JRC (Ispra) / VU-IVM (Amsterdam)

VU-IVM

IVM is an interdisciplinary environmental research institute with approx. 100 researchers We have our own MSc program ERM (link??). Strong focus on link between science and policy/practice

IVM has a leading role in international Global Environmental Change networks: the Global Land Project (IHDP/IGBP) and the Earth System Governance Project (IHDP)

The institute has a strong background in land use, water, biodiversity, economics, community management research Examples include the FP7 projects:• Combioserve, LiveDiverse (biodiversity, community management)• WHaTeR, ADAPTS project (adaptation to climate change in Africa)• RESPONSES, VOLANTE, RUFUS, TURAS, CLAIM (land use,

adaptation, rural development)

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Environmental Monitoring to Support Agriculture 

Citizen monitoring of agricultural parameters (meteo, drought, yield, management, (markets?)) to benefit farmers and provide early warning and yield information

Two applications:

Urban agriculture

Drought monitoring and food security

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Issues addressed in both themes

Define user requirements of the stakeholders

Monitoring design and architecture (the application + data processing procedures)

Application implementation (building and deployment)• Tailor means of deployment to stakeholder needs

Evaluate deployment/uptake efficiency

Evaluate data quality/use (strengths and limitations)

‘business plan’ for further deployment and open data access

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Environmental Monitoring to Support Agriculture 

Two themes:

Urban agriculture

Drought monitoring and food security

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Urban agriculture

Measure light intensity, relative humidity, moisture and temperature

Create maps of microclimates in urban areas to support urban farmers

WP10: Drought monitoring and food securityPeter Verburg and Jetske Bouma

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Involve farmers in Africa’s semi-arid regions in drought monitoring and crop yield predictions….

…. supply them in return with climate forecasts and early warning information on possible droughts.

WP10 will• Assess information needs and monitoring capacity of (subsistence)

farmers in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia (part of FP7 WhaTeR project)

• Develop tools to support farmers in collecting ET/rainfall data and sharing crop calendar and cropping patterns information

• Integrate this information in crop yield and drought forecasting models

• Develop tools to share weather forecasting information

Objective

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Approach

Develop applications for sharing

weather forecasts

Develop mobile phone applications

for monitoring

Farmers in semi-arid Africa(FP7 WHaTeR project)

Crop/yield infoCrop calendarsRainfall/ET

Climate forecastsDrought warnings

Drought monitoring and food security agencies (FAO etc.)

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Division of tasks

Drought monitoring and food security

IVM-VU: Assessment of local capacity and needs

IIASA: EPIC Crop yield modelling and RMS

Alterra; drought index and RMS

Evenor/Sensaris: Sensor development

SAP: market conditions Cashew farmers

Urban agriculture

JRC

ULUND

Evenor/Sensaris/Quirci

Univ of Ioannina / Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche

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Innovations

Tailor similar applications for very different communities/environments

Two major issues on global agricultural agendas: urban agriculture and global food security/drought

Two way information flow with stakeholders on two sides: empower and inform farmers collect early warning systems (NGO’s/global agencies)

Evaluate added value of citizen observatories to RS indices

Evaluate use of information in decision making

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To be done

Specify pilots more clearly and determine case study locations in detail, mention stakeholders

Define tasks of participants clearly