Supporting International Agricultural Research Projects using Open Source

Supporting International Agricultural Research Projects using Open Source GIS A Report on how GIS is used to help the Collaborative Crop Research Project (CCRP) Karsten Vennemann & Matt Stevenson Seattle

Talk Outline What is the Collaborative Crop Research Project (CCRP) ? What are the goals of CCRP ? What are the goals of the GIS support for CCRP ? Approach taken to implement GIS support for CCRP Conclusions

A project of the Mc. Knight Foundation

CCRP is one project of Mc. Knight

Goals of CCRP Vision Ensure a world where all have access to nutritious food, sustainably produced by local people. How collaborative agroecological systems research and knowledge-sharing strengthening the capacities of smallholder farmers, research institutes, and development organizations.

Where we work 120 Projects 4 Regions 12 Countries Examples of Projets: South African region

4 CCRP Regions Have some autonomy to organize their work Each has a Liaison Scientist Research Methods Scientist Regional CCRP Representative GIS Support Andean Region -> Arc. GIS online 3 African Regions -> Open Source 3 African Regions – GIS support West Africa and Southern Africa need direct support Eastern Africa has a dedicated support team

GIS Support Project- Goals Creating a viable and effective technological framework for spatial data storage, presentation and analysis unified data storage, data repositories, web maps, and desktop GIS tools Building and supporting GIS capacity within the CCRP regions and across projects Integrating GIS with the Research Methods (RM) team Creating effective work processes for the use of spatial data in CCRP Easy access to relevant spatial data.

Components of GIS Support Project Teaching GIS tools (Local Experts) GIS Server Infrasctructure GIS Data Work Direct Support of Projects GIS concept report Needs and Opportunities

Approach to implement OS GIS Implementation of a comprehensive Open Source (OS) based GIS Server Architecture Creation of GIS data repositories and map templates for use by agricultural researchers on the desktop Capacity building efforts among dedicated regional GIS teams in the use of Open Source Geospatial Tools.

Web GIS Architecture Open Geo Suite QGIS Export

Web GIS Architecture Geoserver based web maps Soil map SW Kenya – Web viewer Editing in Geo. Explorer Composer

Other CCRP Web GIS Resources Redmine – CCRP Project management Map. Server Project Locations Editing Africa OSM viewer OSM daily exports (spatialite)

Desktop GIS tools QGIS Templates Case Studies

Approach to teach OS GIS Case studies

Data work / accessebility Data set collection OSM extraction -> web directory Global, Regional , Country wide, Project data

Challenges Communication Global distribution of participants Gaining and maintaining interest and momentum working with partners Internet access, power outages

Conclusions Open Source GIS Tools met the needs of the program QGIS, gdal/ogr, Post. GIS, Open. Layers, Leaflet, Geo. Server, Map. Server, Geo. Clim, Homologue. . . Open Street Map data

Conclusions Training Local GIS Experts Increased Data availability Helped increase the efficiency of the research projects Research site selection Better defined goals and areas of spatial impact Direct project support did the same

Future Activities Training of Local GIS Experts publishing maps and data -> Web GIS Continue work on increased data availability examples: Daily, Pental, Decadal Climate Data (CHIRPS) made available for project areas cut to areas of interest, formated as tif, summary and long term data, spatistical evaluation dry spells length of growing season Continued direct project support

Thank you Asante Sana !