Agrometshell

Workshop 15-17 September Rome

Peter Hoefsloot?Dutch NationalMarried, 2 children, 7 sheepMsc. In Agronomy/Meteorology/Comp. Science in Wageningen, The NetherlandsDo management of geo-info projects for Dutch consultancy firm (Haskoning)Have my own (little) company working for FAO and Dutch ministries writing software1989 – 1991 : Agrhymet, Niger 1991 – 1994 : RRSU, Harare, ZimbabweMany missions (most SADC and CILSS countries, Djibouti)

Parts of this demo

A bit of historyObjectives of AMSAMS seen from different perspectivesGeneral structure and functionsDemonstration

A bit of history

Drought sub-Sahara Africa (mid-seventies) : desertification1974 - CILSS founded Agrhymet in Niamey (West Africa)1986 - Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) formed Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD) for East Africa in DjiboutiMid-eighties SADC – (Southern Africa) founded the Regional Early Warning Unit in HarareNow - New frontiers : Afghanistan, IRAQ, Bangladesh

Assisting “early warning”FAO (United Nations)

GIEWS (Global Information and Early Warning System) and support for national and regional EW units

ARTEMIS (Africa Real Time Environmental Monitoring Information System)

USAID (United States) FEWS - Famine Early Warning System

European UnionMany institutes

University of Venice , Italy University of Reading, UK (TAMSAT) ITC, The Netherlands USGS, United States (…)

What do you need for EW?

Data and informationMethods and modelsSoftwareFacilities (computers, communication)Skilled staff

Data for early warningStocks on staple foodsPricing of foods on marketsCrop YieldsWeather data (e.g. rainfall) through GTS (worldwide) and Met Services (national)Satellite data (mainly METEOSAT and NOAA)“Static” support data : maps, census data, agro-ecological zones, soil maps

Where do we get data from?

Ministries and other government institutionsMet ServicesMany internet sources ARTEMIS and AGROMET data

informationhttp://metart.fao.org/

Africa Data Dissemination Servicehttp://edcw2ks21.cr.usgs.gov/adds/

Methods and models

NDVI (Vegetation Greenness Monitoring); 1x1 km and 7x7 kmCold Cloud Duration (CCD)Rainfall estimates (RFE)Water Balance ModelsStatisticsInterpolation

SoftwareIDA- Windisp Agman – Priceman – Spaceman (USGS)FAOINDEX, FAOMET and othersADDAPIX

spatial and temporal analysis of satellite imagery

MADAM generation of multi-image statistics

IGT GIS and interpolation tools for IDA

FAOCLIM software and large agro-climatic database

Why write EW software?

License freeModerate computing requirementsEase of use (WB in Excel is possible..)Possibility to create new analysis methods (SEDI, ADDAPIX)GIS systems require a lot of training, use large and complex data models, are not license free, use heavy computers

AgrometShell

AMS History

1989 : Niamey Niger : SUIVI1992 : Harare Zimbabwe : SEDI and IGT1995 – 2000 : SEDI updatesFrom 2001 : AMS

Promotors and sponsors : FAO Rome, Aghrymet, REWU Harare, IGADD

AgrometShell objectivesFacilitate monitoring of growing seasonFor national and regional EW units and international bodies like FAOAvailable license free Easy to use and well-documentedBridging the gap between agromet, remote sensing and socio-economic datasetsFlexible toolbox to which others can contribute with code (e.g. Univ. of Louvain; interpol.)Exchange with other relevant softwareWindows rewrite of DOS softwareAMS will not provide functions other packages offer

AgrometShell in a nutshellFAO Crop Water Balance modelDatabase for Agromet point data (SUIVI)Interpolation (SEDI, Inverse distance, Co-Kriging etc…)Statistics useful for AgrometProvide conversion functions between data filesViewer (every function ends with viewing results) AutomationSome functions are in because unavailable in other EW software

AMS technically

Programmed in Delphi (Pascal)Contributions by others in form of DLL’sAccess database (through ADO)Executable that does not require any other softwareShare database on network

Main Window

DEMO 1

The agromet database

SUIVI : Database for agromet data

Daily, Dekadal and Monthly weather station (point) dataEvery operation through flexible stationlistAdd parameters easilyFlexible ASCII import

Database technicallyDatabase in Microsoft ACCESS 2000 formatAccessible from outside AMSVery common database formatQuery generator in AccessDatabase can be placed on networkExchange of data with large database (Oracle SQL Server etc.)Early versions had Paradox tables

DemoInventoryLists and base listParametersData entryView data on map, graph, reportFormulas and calculationAggregationImport from image and ASCII file

DEMO 2

Calculating a Water Balance

Water Balance Model based on the work of Frere/Popov and Rene GommesImprovements so far: Irrigation (amount at planting or dekad by

dekad) Phenological stages : initial, vegetative,

flowering, ripening Crop coefficients based on 9 rather than 4

graph points Daily Time Steps More sets of crop coefficients per crop “Run file” approach

Water Balance (2)

AMS does not operate directly on database, but on ASCII files.ASCII files are first exported from the databaseTwo possibilities:1. Monitoring (1 year; many stations)2. Risk Analysis (1 stations; many years)

DEMO

Close look at cropsDekadal and daily time stepsWith and without irrigationView resultsMake images from resultsAutomation

DEMO 3

Integrating and analyzing data

Data integration (1)

Technically data come as: Points Areas Images (or grids)

Images are best for analysis Very visual (easy to check results) A picture tells more than a 1000 words Easy arithmetic with pixels

Demo

Integrate Water Balance results with Yield dataWB results : point dataYields : From ministry (area aggregated)Turn both into imagesStudy the relation between Yield and Water Satisfaction Index geographically