Climate services for health: from global observations to local interventions

Despite the wealth of available climate data available, there is no consensus on the most appropriate product choice for health impact modelling and how this influences downstream climate-health decisions. We discuss challenges related to product choice, highlighting the importance of considering data biases and co-development of climate services between different sectors

Emerging Trends in Crisis Management: Usability, Earth Observation and Disaster Management

Availability of Earth observation (EO) data and dissemination has been revolutionized with technological advancement in computation and use of mobile tools such as phones, tablets and laptops. This is further expanded with availability of affordable data/internet connections which no longer require Ethernet cables to get internet connection. The result is explosion of spatial data on various blogs and personal profiles such as Tweeter, Facebook, Instagram and other internet feeds. This has created explosion of information with a lot of integrity issues on data quality, lack of data source and lack of responsibility and authenticity. The problem is further compounded with advancement in search engines and data harvesting applications which collects similar archived information and makes them available to the user on the internet search engines. There should be a clear link detailing the nature of EO and the kind of relevant information that can be derived from them

Workshop report: Integrated Food Security Modeling in Eastern and Southern Africa

CCAFS organized a workshop on Integrated Food Security Modeling in Eastern and Southern Africa on 10-13 February 2014 in Nairobi, Kenya. The workshop was attended by participants from global, regional, and national institutions, including: the World Food Programme (WFP); the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), USAID Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET); the IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC); the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia (RIMES); CGIAR Research Centers (CIMMYT, CIAT, ICRISAT, ICRAF, CIP, ILRI, AfricaRice, IRRI,); and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS); Workshop presentations and discussions accomplished the following objectives: The concepts and components of Integrated Food Security Modeling were explained along with descriptions, methodologies, and progress of work for current modeling activities in Eastern Africa and globally, including climate models, bio-physical crop models, and econometric models. Data and knowledge gaps, technical challenges, and uncertainties which constrain the accuracy of model outputs were identified, including lack of access to data in formats suitable for model input, data quality issues, errors arising from the aggregation of data collected at points to represent heterogenous areas, and the challenge of quantifying uncertainty when different models are combined. Challenges specific to the region include improving the skill of seasonal climate forecasts for East Africa, adopting the crop models to smallholder farming systems. Institutions participating in in the workshop agreed to prepare a concept note for research on these topics and submit it to CCAFS for funding consideration under Flagship 2: Climate Information Services and Climate-informed Safety Nets

Survey of Federal, National, and International standards applicable to the NASA applications data services

An applications data service (ADS) was developed to meet the challenges in the data access and integration. The ADS provides a common service to locate and access applications data electronically and integrate the cross correlative data sets required by multiple users. Its catalog and network services increase data visibility as well as provide the data in a more rapid manner and a usable form

Use of Climate Information in Malaria Stratification/Early Warning Systems/Impact Assessment for Malaria Interventions

A report on the training workshop and stakeholder meeting hosted by the Tanzania Meteorological Agency in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania October 16th-18th 2013

Scaling up climate services for farmers: Mission Possible. Learning from good practice in Africa and South Asia

This report presents lessons learned from 18 case studies across Africa and South Asia that have developed and delivered weather and climate information and related advisory services for smallholder farmers. The case studies and resulting lessons provide insights on what will be needed to build effective national systems for the production, delivery, communication and evaluation of operational climate services for smallholder farmers across the developing world. The case studies include two national-scale programmes that have been the subject of recent assessments: India’s Integrated Agrometeorological Advisory Service (AAS) Program, which provides tailored weather-based agrometeorological advisories to millions of farmers; and Mali’s Projet d’Assistance Agro-meteorologique au Monde Rural, which provided innovative seasonal agrometeorological advisory services for smallholder farmers and 16 less mature initiatives operating at a pilot scale across Africa and South Asia. The case studies were examined from the standpoint of how they address five key challenges for scaling up effective climate services for farmers: salience, access, legitimacy, equity and integration

Climate change-induced disasters and cultural heritage: Optimizing management strategies in Central Europe

Due to climate change, it is foreseen that the frequency and magnitude of extreme climate events such as heavy precipitation, flooding and drought will increase throughout Europe. In recent times, numerous areas suffered from disasters that produced significant damage to cultural heritage. Although different risk management strategies are currently enforced in Central Europe, there still exist many challenges that undermine their effectiveness. This study reviews the necessary points to be addressed for strengthening existing management strategies within the region and the characteristics of potential resilience building measures. It presents feasible and tailored ICT solutions (e.g. a web GIS platform) and decision support tools (e.g. a manual for cultural heritage resilience and a handbook on transnational rescue procedures) for the protection of cultural heritage against floods, heavy rain and fire. These tools result from the Interreg Central Europe project ProteCHt2save, concentrating on risk assessment and sustainable protection of cultural heritage in changing environments. The proposed measures are tested at pilot sites and successfully integrated in local risk management plans. Future work is also proposed for further implementation of the results

Climate services for health: From global observations to local interventions.

Despite the wealth of available climate data available, there is no consensus on the most appropriate product choice for health impact modelling and how this influences downstream climate-health decisions. We discuss challenges related to product choice, highlighting the importance of considering data biases and co-development of climate services between different sectors