GIS and Remote Sensing in Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change

INTRODUCTION

The main purpose of the course is to enhance the capabilities of technical staff involved in Food Security Analysis, climate analysis and agriculture by providing them with an understanding on the use of spatial and Earth Observation (EO) information as a tool to integrate knowledge about climate change, agriculture, and food security in a meaningful and innovative way.

DURATION

 5 Days

COURSE OBJECTIVES

 By completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Understand the basic concepts of GIS and Remote Sensing
• Understand concepts and main frameworks in Food Security Analysis
• Understand concepts and main frameworks in Climate Change Analysis
• Understand concepts and main frameworks in Agriculture
• Understand the relationship between climate change, agriculture and food security
• Apply GIS and Remote Sensing as Decision support tool for Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.
• Use GIS information in planning FS interventions through spatial multi-criteria analysis
• Assess spatial data availability and understand the importance of spatial data infrastructure (SDI), for data sharing by organizations involved in Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.
• Apply GIS and RS for designing implementations of large scale early warning systems
• Use participatory GIS (PGIS) tools during assessments at community level
• Apply remote sensing data and image processing techniques to monitor select Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security indicators
• Use mobile phones to gather data during field assessments/surveys
• Design and implement their own GIS projects that integrate remote sensing data and GPS-based field information

COURSE OUTLINE

 Module 1

 Key concepts and definitions

• Introduction to climate change, Agriculture, Food security  and their relationship
•  GIS for climate change, Agriculture and Food security 
•  Introduction to GIS and R.S concepts in the context of climate change, Agriculture and Food security.
• GIS project design and setup
• Sources of GIS data for climate change, Agriculture and Food security
• Basic use of GIS Software
• Integrating data from different sources into a GIS
• Using handheld GPS for field data collection
• Geospatial Analysis for Agriculture and food security
• Mapping areas of climate change
• Mapping areas of food insecurity
•  Remote Sensing in climate change, Agriculture and Food security.
•  Introduction to Remote sensing
• Use of Remote sensing and image analysis software
• Image interpretation
• Image classification
• Change detection 

Module 2:

The impacts of climate change on Agriculture and food security (Use of GIS in Climate Predictions)

• Response to climate change: Adaptation and mitigation: the climate analogue tool
• Role of climatic change detection on Agriculture and food security
• International and National Policy Framework for addressing climate change; UNFCCC Kyoto protocol and existing local policies

GIS and Remote sensing in Agriculture

• Yield monitoring and mapping 
• Characterizing soil spatial variability 
• Site?specific soil management: prescription maps 
• Grid sampling, management zones, realistic yield expectations 
• Remote sensing (RS) for site?specific management.