Spatial Information Systems in Crop Monitoring: Developing New Global Models and Sharing the Data

The AGRIFISH unit of the Joint Research Centre, European Commission, has now nearly 20 years of experience with crop monitoring in and outside Europe. During this period, a number of research and development activities have been carried out, leading to several operational systems which are all based on spatial information. One of the best known is the MARS Crop Yield Forecasting System (MCYFS) for Europe, which is providing independent quantitative crop statistics at EU and national levels, in near real time. Similar tools have been developed in the last 5 years at a global scale and with the main aim of providing crop status information and yield forecasts in many areas of frequent food insecurity around the world. The most recent example of global crop monitoring system is the Global Water Satisfaction Index (GWSI) currently under development by a JRC project. The models are run directly by JRC or by its contractors, and the output data are disseminated directly or in form of crop monitoring bulletins to food security analysts and food security policy makers everywhere in the world. To make this possible, a huge spatial data distribution structure has been set up and both spatial data and analyzed data are made available to the broad public. Millions of maps are accessible online since the MARSOP website was first launched at the beginning of 2001 and thousands of satellite images and meteorological records both at the European and the global scale have become available to the users thanks to the recently setup AGRIFISH image portal. Finally, in addition to sharing the spatial input and output data of the AGRIFISH crop monitoring systems, the analyzed results are summarized and made available as crop monitoring reports or bulletins both through mailing lists and through the internet. These bulletins are issued ten-daily for some of the most vulnerable countries in Eastern Africa like Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia and monthly for Europe, for the IGAD region in Eastern Africa, for the MERCOSUR countries in South America, for Central Asia and for the Mediterranean basin.

REMBOLD Felix;  DELINCE Jacques;  BOOGARD Hendrik;  BURGER Armin; 

2008-07-09

Military Geographic Institute of Chile (IGM), Global Geo-Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI)

JRC34554

http://gsdidocs.org/gsdiconf/GSDI-9/papers/TS47.1paper.pdf,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC34554,