Framework for Predicting Droughts in Developing Countries Using Sensor Networks and Mobile Phones

Drought is the most complex and least understood of all natural disasters and it affects more people than any other hazard. Droughts have become synonymous with the developing countries and in particular the Sub-Saharan Africa where the hazard is chronic. Effects of droughts can be mitigated if accurate and timely drought predications were to be done. Unfortunately, despite the enormous advancements in science, predictions only provide indications of trends. A major weakness of the existing tools is the emphasis on macro/international level information. The tools also tend to ignore the at risk community who happen to be host to very crucial traditional knowledge on droughts. In this paper, we propose an integrated drought predication framework that considers both scientific and traditional knowledge and combines the use of mobile phones with wireless sensor networks to be able to capture and relay micro drought parameters. The framework is an enhancement of ITU’s Ubiquitous Sensor Network (USN) Layers. In order to accommodate the diverse roles mobile phones play in our framework, Layer 2 (USN Access Networking) is implemented using three sub-layers composed of heterogeneous gateways

ITIKI: Bridge between African indigenous knowledge and modern science on drought prediction

The now more rampant and severe droughts have become synonymous with Sub-Saharan Africa; they are a major contributor to the acute food insecurity in the Region. Though this scenario may be replicated in other regions in the globe, the uniqueness of the problem in Sub-Saharan Africa is to be found in the ineffectiveness of the drought monitoring and predicting tools in use in these countries. Here, resource-challenged National Meteorological Services are tasked with drought monitoring responsibility. The main form of forecasts is the Seasonal Climate Forecasts whose utilisation by small-scale farmers is below par; they instead consult their Indigenous Knowledge Forecasts. This is partly because the earlier are too supply-driven, too ""coarse"" to have meaning at the local level and their dissemination channels are ineffective. Indigenous Knowledge Forecasts are under serious threat from events such as climate variations and ""modernisation""; blending it with the scientific forecasts can mitigate some of this. Conversely, incorporating Indigenous Knowledge Forecasts into the Seasonal Climate Forecasts will improve its relevance (cultural and local) and acceptability, hence boosting its utilisation among small-scale farmers. The advantages of such a mutual symbiosis relationship between these two forecasting systems can be accelerated using ICTs. This is the thrust of this research: a novel drought-monitoring and predicting solution that is designed to work within the unique context of small-scale farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The research started off by designing a novel integration framework that creates the much-needed bridge (itiki) between Indigenous Knowledge Forecasts and Seasonal Climate Forecasts. The Framework was then converted into a sustainable, relevant and acceptable Drought Early Warning System prototype that uses mobile phones as input/output devices and wireless sensor-based weather meters to complement the weather stations. This was then deployed in Mbeere and Bunyore regions in Kenya. The complexity of the resulting system was enormous and to ensure that these myriad parts worked together, artificial intelligence technologies were employed: artificial neural networks to develop forecast models with accuracies of 70% to 98% for lead-times of 1 day to 4 years; fuzzy logic to store and manipulate the holistic indigenous knowledge; and intelligent agents for linking the prototype modules

Role of ICTs in improving drought scenario management in India

Drought is a natural phenomenon that affects social, economic and environmental sectors. It is caused due to low or no rainfall in the specific region and for some duration of time. Reduced soil moisture and ground water level are the other causes for drought. Based on its intensity, drought has impacts on various sectors like agriculture, transportation, forest fire, environment and many more. Agriculture is the major sector being affected by drought resulting in low crop production and having great detriment to economy of the country. In this paper, an attempt is made to study the different causes and effects of drought, their impact on agricultural sector, various strategies for drought monitoring, prevention and management keeping the focus on Indian Agricultural Sector. This study examines the extent of use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for drought assessment, prediction, preparedness and management scenario in India. The paper aims in portraying how the application of ICT in drought events is helpful in managing drought and thus helpful for researchers and farmers as well

Implementation RoadMap For Downscaling Drought Forecasts In Mbeere Using ITIKI

Mbeere is in Eastern Kenya and it has an average of 550 mm annual rainfall and therefore classified under Arid and Semi-Arid Lands. It has fragile ecosystems, unfavorable climate, poor infrastructure and historical marginalization; the perennial natural disasters here are droughts. Of importance to this paper is the fact that despite its vast area of 2,093 km2, there is no single weather station serving the area. The main source of livelihood is rain-fed marginal farming and livestock keeping by small-scale and peasant farmers who rely mostly on the indigenous knowledge of seasons in making cropping decisions. ITIKI; acronym for Information Technology and Indigenous Knowledge with Intelligence is a bridge that integrates indigenous drought forecasting approach into the scientific drought forecasting approach. ITIKI, a framework initiated by the authors of this paper was adopted and adapted from the word itiki which is the name used among the Mbeere people to refer to an indigenous bridge used for decades to go across rivers. ITIKI makes use of mobile phones, wireless sensor networks and artificial intelligence to downscale weather/drought forecasts to individual farmers. ITIKI implementation project in Mbeere commenced in August 2012; this paper describes the implementation roadmap for this project

ITIKI: bridge between African indigenous knowledge and modern science of drought prediction

Droughts are the most common type of natural disaster in Africa and the problem is compounded by their complexity. The agriculture sector still forms the backbone of most economies in Africa, with 70% of output being derived from rain-fed smallscale farming; this sector is the first casualty of droughts. Accurate, timely and relevant drought predication information enables a community to anticipate and prepare for droughts and hence minimize the negative impacts. Current weather forecasts are still alien to African farmers, most of whom live in rural areas and struggle with illiteracy and poor communications infrastructure. However, these farmers hold indigenous knowledge not only on how to predict droughts, but also on unique coping strategies. Adoption of wireless sensor networks and mobile phones to provide a bridge between scientific and indigenous knowledge of weather forecasting methods is one way of ensuring that the content of forecasts and the dissemination formats meet local needs. A framework for achieving this integration is presented in this paper. A system prototype to implement this framework is also presented

MobiGrid: A Middleware for Integrating Mobile Phone and Grid Computing

The popularity and the high processing power of today's smart phones have presented computer scientists with a fertile platform on which to implement grid computing for mobile phones. Such grids will not require much investment since they are designed to make use of `idle' power on already existing phones. This is because most smart phone users only use their phones for a few minutes or a few hours every day and yet, these phones are powered up 24/7. These kinds of grids are most favorable to developing countries where the penetration of mobile phone exceeds other forms of ICTs. Once in place, the grids can then be utilized to run the much-needed applications such e-health, e-education and drought prediction. In this paper, we present MobiGrid, a middleware for mobile phone grid that is part of a larger research project that aims at integrating mobile phones and sensors to come up with a drought predication tool for use in the developing countries. MobiGrid is an API on which distributed applications can be built. Unlike the rest of grid middleware solutions, the uniqueness of our approach lies in the fact that the middleware is for mobile phones environment

Ubiquitous Mesh Networking: application to mobile communication and information dissemination in a rural context

ICT has furthered the social and economic development of societies but, rural African communities have lagged behind due to issues such as sparse population, low household income, a lack of electricity and other basic infrastructure that make it unattractive for telecommunication service providers to extend service provision. Where the service is available, ubiquitous service coverage has not translated into ubiquitous access for individuals because of the associated costs. A community-wide WMN offering VoIP using fixed telephone handsets has been deployed as a viable alternative to the cellular service provider. The effectiveness of this WMN VoIP service springs from the mobile phone usage statistics which showed that the majority of calls made are intra-community. This dissertation has been an effort towards improved communication and access to information for the under-served communities. Key contributions include, mobile VoIP support, translation gateway deployment to make textual information accessible in voice form via the phone, IP-based radio for community information dissemination. The lack of electricity has been mitigated by the use of low-power devices. In order to circumvent the computational challenges posed by the processing and storage limitations of these devices, a decentralised system architecture whereby the processing and storage load are distributed across the mesh nodes has been proposed. High-performance equipment can be stationed at the closest possible place with electricity in the area and connectivity extended to the non-electrified areas using low-power mesh networking devices. Implementation techniques were investigated and performance parameters measured. The quality of service experienced by the user was assessed using objective methods and QoS correlation models. A MOS value of 4.29, i.e. very good, was achieved for the mobile VoIP call quality, with the underlying hardware supporting up to 15 point-to-point simultaneous calls using SIP and the G.711 based codec. Using the PEAQ algorithm to evaluate the IP-based radio, a PEAQ value of 4.15, i.e. good, was achieved. Streaming audio across the network reduces the available bandwidth by 8Kbps per client due to the unicast nature of streaming. Therefore, a multicast approach has been proposed for efficient bandwidth utilization. The quality of the text-to-voice service rendered by the translation gateway had a PESQ score of 1.6 i.e. poor. The poor performance can be attributed to the TTS engine implementation and also to the lack of robustness in the time-alignment module of the PESQ algorithm. The dissertation also proposes the use of the WMN infrastructure as a back-haul to isles of WSNs deployed in areas of interest to provide access to information about environmental variables useful in decision making

Information-Communication Technologies as an Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) Tool for Sustainable Development

Sustainability is a crucial and at the same time vital approach for satisfying future generations’ rights on natural resources. Toward this direction, global policies, supported by international organizations such as UNESCO and its international science programs, foster sustainable development as principal concept for the management of various thematic areas including the environment. The present work promotes the integration of information-communication technologies (ICTs) in the water resources management field as a state of the art concept that sets the basis for sustainable development at global scale. The research focuses on the ICTs contribution to the evolution of scientific and technological disciplines, such as satellite earth observations, real time monitoring networks, geographic information systems, and cloud-based geo information systems and their interconnection to integrated water resources management. Moreover, selected international research programs and activities of UNESCO International Hydrology Programme (IHP) are synoptically but comprehensively being presented to demonstrate the integration of the technological advances in water resources management and their role toward sustainable development

Application of new science tools in integrated watershed management for enhancing impacts.

Not AvailableApplication of new science tools in rainfed agriculture opens up new vistas for development through IWMPs. These tools can help in improving the rural livelihoods and contributing substantially to meet the millennium development goals of halving the number of hungry people by 2015 and achieving food security through enhanced use efficiency of scarce natural resources such as land and water in the tropical countries. Till now rainfed areas of the SAT did not get much benefit of new science tools but the recent research using these tools such as simulation modeling, remote sensing, GIS as well as satellite-based monitoring of the natural resources in the SAT has shown that not only the effectiveness of the research is enhanced substantially but also the cost efficiency and impact are enhanced. The remarkable developments in space technology currently offer satellites which provide better spatial and spectral resolutions, more frequent revisits, stereo viewing, and on-board recording capabilities. Thus, the high spatial and temporal resolution satellite data could be effectively used for watershed management and monitoring activities at land ownership level. By using crop simulation modeling approach, yield gap analyses for the major crops in Asia, Africa, and WANA regions revealed that the yields could be doubled with the existing technologies if the improved crop land, nutrient, and water management options are scaled-out. Similarly, technology application domains could be easily identified for better success and greater adoption of the particular technologies considering the biophysical as well as socioeconomic situations. GIS helped in speedy analysis of voluminous data and more rationale decision in less time to target the investments as well as to monitor the large number of interventions in the SAT. The satellite-based techniques along with GIS helped in identifying the vast fallow areas (2 million ha) in Madhya Pradesh during the rainy season. Similarly, 14 million ha rice-fallows in the Indo-Gangetic Plain offer excellent potential to grow second crop on residual soil moisture by using shortduration chickpea cultivars and simple seed priming technology. These techniques are also successfully used for preparing detailed thematic maps, watershed development plans, and continuous monitoring of the natural resources in the country in rainfed areas. Further, such data could be of immense help in tracking the implementation, applying midcourse corrections, and for assessing long-term effectiveness of the program implemented. The synergy of GIS and Web Technology allows access to dynamic geospatial watershed information without burdening the users with complicated and expensive software. Further, these web-based technologies help the field data collection and analysis in a collaborative way. However the availability of suitable software for watershed studies and their management in open GIS platform is very limited. Hence, there is a requirement to strengthen this area through collaborative efforts between various line organizations. Use of ICT in IWMP can bridge the existing gap to reach millions of small farm holders who have no access to new technologies for enhancing agricultural productivity on their farms. Use of smart sensor network along with GIS, remote sensing, Wani Ch006.tex 8/7/2011 19: 41 Page 201 Application of new science tools in integrated watershed management 201 simulation modeling and ICT opens up new opportunities for developing intelligent watershed management information systems. However, it calls for a new partnership involving corporates, development agencies, researchers from various disciplines and most importantly to reach millions of small farm holders in rainfed areas of the world. Application of new science tools in IWMP have helped to substantially enhance productivity as well as income from rainfed agriculture and improved livelihoods of the rural people.Not Availabl