Thursday, November 7, 2013
Agricultural Technology- Aqueduct
Aqueduct
Aqueduct is an online database, created by the World Resources Institute, that lets its users to combine 12 important indicators of water risk to build global overall water risk maps. The 12 indicators are such as baseline water stress, inter-annual variability, seasonal variability, flood occurrence, drought severity, upstream storage, groundwater stress, return flow ratio, upstream protected land, media coverage, access to water, and threatened amphibians. It shows us areas that have water quality problems, gives us predictions for floods and droughts, supply-to-demand ratios, and many other details. Each location is given a certain risk score, and heat maps provided in the database points out which areas have the biggest problems. This database has been used by many companies, investors and even governments to make global policy decisions regarding water scarcity, particularly.
The downside is that this database is based on the water scarcity data for the last three years, causing this database to provide results that are not fully precise or true.
The advantage of this database is that it helps many people to predict and understand many areas with water scarcity and quality problems.
Link for more information
Agricultural Technology- Digital Green
Digital Green
Using low-cost pocket video cameras, Digital Green is a massive database full of instructional videos from across India, Ghana, and Ethiopia. It is currently working in around 1,500 villages with more than 125,000 farmers, roughly 70 percent of whom are female. It helps its users by sharing agricultural knowledge and supporting and encouraging use of new techniques. Each video is 8 to 10 minutes long, made by a farmer addressing various agricultural questions.
Pros: It allows the illiterate populations, which is more than 40 percent in India, 30 percent in Ghana, and 60 percent in Ethiopia, to learn and get benefit from the videos.
Cons: This is a very labor-intensive process, involving farmers from many countries.
Link for more information
Agricultural Technology- Grameen Foundation's CKW Program
Grameen Foundation's CKW Program
Grameen Foundation team up with Palantir Technologies to revolutionize Uganda’s approach to farming. Grameen Foundation provided 28,000 geocoded soil samples from all over Uganda, and Palantir Technologies used it to create an exhaustive soil map of Uganda. The map includes pH levels on areas in the country, where to optimally plant prominent crops (maize, coffee, bananas, and soybeans), and areas which are vulnerable to maggots and other types of pests.
Pros: The map is very comprehensive with regards to planting those prominent crops in Uganda. It tells its users exactly where the best to grow those crops in the country is.
Cons: Unfortunately, the map has just covered those top crops. Therefore, the similar data for other crops still needs to be produced for other farmers who plant other crops.
Link for more information
Agricultural Technology- Web Soil Survey
Web Soil Survey (WSS)
WSS is enormously helpful for people, especially farmers, by providing access to soil data and other related information generated by the National Cooperative Soil Survey. This great website is operated by the USDA Service (NRCS). In addition to providing soil data, it also gives users access to the largest natural resource information system in the world. One of the benefits from this powerful website is that users can utilize the soil data information to check the suitability of the soils of an area for a particular use. The soil maps and data are available online for almost 100 percent of the nation’s counties.
Pros: Users can check if the soil of an area is suitable for a particular purpose or not.
Cons: Because of the various and enormous data presented in the website, there is a lot of requirements for your computer to be able to open up and utilize the website. See all the requirements
Link for more details
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