Gaining Depth: State of Watershed Investment 2014

Last year, governments, businesses, and donors channeled $12.3 billion (B) toward nature-based solutions to the global water crisis. Water users and public funders were paying land managers to repair and protect forests, wetlands, and other natural systems as a flexible, costeffective strategy to ensure clean and reliable water supplies, resilience to natural disasters, and sustainable livelihoods. These deals paid for watershed protection and restoration across more than 365 million (M) hectares (ha) worldwide in 2013, an area larger than India.The value of investment in watershed services1 (IWS) - referring to funding for watershed restoration or protection that delivers benefits to society like aquifer recharge or erosion control - has been growing at anaverage rate of 12% per year. The number of operational programs grew by two thirds between 2011 and 2013, expanding in both scale and sophistication as program developers introduced new tools to track returns on watershed investment, coordinated efforts across political boundaries, and delivered additional benefits like sustainable livelihoods and biodiversity protection

Mapping Crop Cycles in China Using MODIS-EVI Time Series

As the Earth’s population continues to grow and demand for food increases, the need for improved and timely information related to the properties and dynamics of global agricultural systems is becoming increasingly important. Global land cover maps derived from satellite data provide indispensable information regarding the geographic distribution and areal extent of global croplands. However, land use information, such as cropping intensity (defined here as the number of cropping cycles per year), is not routinely available over large areas because mapping this information from remote sensing is challenging. In this study, we present a simple but efficient algorithm for automated mapping of cropping intensity based on data from NASA’s (NASA: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration) MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The proposed algorithm first applies an adaptive Savitzky-Golay filter to smooth Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) time series derived from MODIS surface reflectance data. It then uses an iterative moving-window methodology to identify cropping cycles from the smoothed EVI time series. Comparison of results from our algorithm with national survey data at both the provincial and prefectural level in China show that the algorithm provides estimates of gross sown area that agree well with inventory data. Accuracy assessment comparing visually interpreted time series with algorithm results for a random sample of agricultural areas in China indicates an overall accuracy of 91.0% for three classes defined based on the number of cycles observed in EVI time series. The algorithm therefore appears to provide a straightforward and efficient method for mapping cropping intensity from MODIS time series data

Water management in public irrigation schemes in Vietnam

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE). An overview of the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment and the outlook for a satellite crop inventory

The author has identified the following significant results. The most important LACIE finding was that the technology worked very well in estimating wheat production in important geographic locations. Based on working through the many successes and shortcomings of LACIE, it can be stated with confidence that: (1) the current technology can successfully monitor what production in regions having similar characteristics to those of the U.S.S.R. wheat areas and the U.S. hard red winter wheat areas; (2) with additional applied research, significant improvements in capabilities to monitor wheat in these and other important production regions can be expected in the near future; (3) the remote sensing and weather effects modeling technology approached used by LACIE is generally applicable to other major crops and crop-producing regions of the world; and (4) with suitable effort, this technology can now advance rapidly and could be widespread use in the late 1980's

Assessing the Feasibility of Nutrient Trading Between Point Sources and Nonpoint Sources in the Chao Lake Basin Final

This pilot project will determine the Feasibility of an effective point-nonpoint source nutrient trading program could be established in the Lake Chao Basin, Program's potential benefits, Framework and necessary elements for such a program

The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019

An inclusive, digitally-enabled agricultural transformation could help achieve meaningful livelihood improvements for Africa’s smallholder farmers and pastoralists. It could drive greater engagement in agriculture from women and youth and create employment opportunities along the value chain. At CTA we staked a claim on this power of digitalisation to more systematically transform agriculture early on. Digitalisation, focusing on not individual ICTs but the application of these technologies to entire value chains, is a theme that cuts across all of our work. In youth entrepreneurship, we are fostering a new breed of young ICT ‘agripreneurs’. In climate-smart agriculture multiple projects provide information that can help towards building resilience for smallholder farmers. And in women empowerment we are supporting digital platforms to drive greater inclusion for women entrepreneurs in agricultural value chains

ESA - RESGROW: Epansion of the Market for EO Based Information Services in Renewable Energy - Biomass Energy sector

Biomass energy is of growing importance as it is widely recognised, both scientifically and politically, that the increase of atmospheric CO2 has led to an enhanced efficiency of the greenhouse effect and, as such, warrants concern for climate change. It is accepted (IPCC 2011 and just recently in the draft version of the IPCC 2013 report) that climate change is partly induced by humans notably by using fossil fuels. For reducing the use of oil or coal, biomass energy is receiving more and more attention as an additional energy source available regionally in large parts of the world. Effective management of renewable energy resources is critical for the European and the global energy supply system. The future contribution of bioenergy to the energy supply strongly depends on its availability, in other words the biomass potential. Biomass potentials are currently mainly assessed on a national to regional or on a global level, with the bulk biomass potential allocated to the whole country. With certain biomass fractions being of low energy density, transport distances and thus their spatial distribution are crucial economic and ecological factors. For other biomass fractions a super-regional or global market is envisaged. Thus spatial information on biomass potentials is vital for the further expansion of bioenergy use. This study, which is an updated version of a study carried out in 2007 in frame of the ENVISOLAR project, analyses the potential use of Earth Observation data as input for biomass models in order to assessment and manage of the biomass energy resources especially biomass potentials of agricultural and forest areas with high spatial resolution (typical 1km x 1km). In addition to a sorrow review of recent developments in data availability and approaches in comparison to its 2007’ version, this study also includes a review on approaches to directly correlate remote sensing data with biomass estimations. An overview of existing biomass models is given covering models using remote sensing data as input as well as models using only meteorological and/or management data as input. It covers the full life cycle from the planning stage to plant management and operations (Figure 1). Several groups of stakeholders were identified

Feeding Ourselves Thirsty: How the Food Sector is Managing Global Water Risks

The global food sector faces extraordinary risks from the twin challenges of water scarcity and water pollution. Growing competition for water, combined with weak regulations, failing infrastructure, pollution and climate change impacts threaten the sector's water security and contribute to a water availability emergency that was recently ranked the world's "top global risk" by the World Economic Forum.This report examines how water risks affect the profitability and competitive positioning of 37 major food sector companies in four industries: packaged food, beverage, meat and agricultural products. It evaluates and ranks these companies -- the majority of which are U.S. domiciled and publicly-traded -- on how well they are positioned to anticipate and mitigate these risks, as well as contribute to improved water resource management.The report provides recommendations for how analysts and investors can effectively evaluate food sector companies on their water risk exposure and management practices. It also provides recommendations for how food companies can improve water efficiency and water quality across their operations and supply chains to reduce risks and protect water resources