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 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. 

Module 3:

Assessment

• Food Security Assessment and Analysis
• The use of satellite imagery for food insecurity detection and recovery
• Visualization of vulnerability information
• Assessing food insecurity impact
• Climate change sources of uncertainty and variation

Module 4

Global Positioning System (GPS) and Basic GPS skills 

• Types of GPS
• GPS, GLONAS, Argos, and other data types and sources
• Developing standard procedures and guidelines
• GPS configuration, Capturing data from surveys
• GPS data  download and related tasks
• Integrating GPS field data into the GIS database

Module 5

Public Participatory GIS and data collection using mobile phones

• Participatory GIS methods
• Participatory GIS and HVR analysis
• Community-based climate predictions
• Using GIS to Build hazard-aware and ready communities
• Use of Mobile Phones for GIS Data collection in Assessment and Surveys

Case Studies:

• Integrating Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (Climate Analogue)
• GIS based approaches for adapting Agriculture to Climate Change