A Global Agriculture Information SystemZhong Liu1,4, W. Teng2,4, S. Kempler4, H. Rui3,4, G. Leptoukh3 and E. Ocampo3,4

1 George Mason University, 2 RS Information Systems, Inc., 3 ADNET Systems, Inc., 4 NASA/GSFC, NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data & Information Services Center (DISC) , Code 610.2, NASA/GSFC , Maryland 20771, USA

Agriculture Information System Diagram

Localdata

RemoteData

&GDS

Prepare GrADSScript for reading

And Processing data

Process user inputs Handle input errors

Execute Script and Generate image or ASCII output

GrADS lib and User Defined

Function

Acknowledgments:The Agriculture Information System and AOVAS are supported by NASA REASoN CAN 02-OES-01. Special thanks to Dr. Suhung Shen for providing the poster template.

Introduction

Monitoring global agricultural crop conditions during the growing season and estimating potential seasonal production are critically important for market development of U.S. agricultural products and for global food security. Two major operational users of satellite remote sensing for global crop monitoring are the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) and the U.N. World Food Program (WFP). The primary goal of FAS is to improve foreign market access for U.S. agricultural products. The WFP allocates food to meet emergency needs and to support economic and social development. Both use global agricultural decision support systems that can integrate and synthesize a variety of data sources to provide accurate and timely information on global crop conditions.

The Agricultural Information System (AIS), currently under development, will provide an one-stop-shop for easy accesses to data, information and analysis of NASA remote sensing and other products (e.g., rainfall, crop model outputs) and services. In particular, the Agriculture Online Visualization and Analysis System (AOVAS) will allow users to obtain customized data and analysis in their regions of interest over the Internet and with few clicks of mouse. AOVAS is based on the existing TRMM Online Visualization and Analysis System (TOVAS) which has been successfully providing global rainfall information ranging from near-real-time to historical archives over the past several years.

The AOVAS will enable the remote, interoperable access to distributed data, by taking advantage of the GrADS-DODS Server (GDS), a stable, secure data server that provides subsetting and analysis services across the Internet, for any GrADS-readable data set. The subsetting capability allows users to retrieve a specified spatial region from a large data set, eliminating the need to first download everything. The analysis capability allows users to retrieve the results of an operation applied to one or more data sets on the server.

The first release of AIS will contain: 1) Analysis of current conditions that contains links to complete product (rainfall, surface reflectance, etc.) analysis maps for selected regions worldwide and the conterminous United States; 2) An Agriculture Online Visualization and Analysis System (AOVAS) that allows to access global, current and historical data and analysis and generate customized maps, time series, and digital data.

Info. Assembling

Future Conditions

Weather and Climate Prediction

Numerical Prediction

Uncertainty Issues

Current Conditions

Uncertainty Issues

Analysis of Current Conditions

Rainfall

NDVI MODIS Imagery

Station Data

Analysis of Historical Archives

Past Conditions

Decision Making

Other Data

Statistical Forecast

Uncertainty Issues

Diagram of Agriculture Online Visualization and Analysis System (AOVAS)

Existing Products:Multi-Satellite 3-hourly rainfall (3B42RT)TRMM 3-hourly rainfall (3B42)TRMM monthly rainfall (3B43)Derived rainfall (daily, 10-day)Willmott monthly historical rainfall (station data)GPCC monthly historical rainfall (station data)

Agriculture Project Portalhttp://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/agriculture/index.shtml

Screen shots of the agriculture project portal (left) and the Agriculture Information System (right)

Examples of Agriculture Online Visualization and Analysis System (AOVAS)

http://agdisc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Giovanni/aovas/

Data and analysis (e.g., maps, time series, animation, etc.) are available via AOVAS:

http://agdisc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Giovanni/aovas/

Output type Description

Area Plot Area plot averaged or accumulated over any available data period within any rectangular area

Time Plot Time series averaged over any rectangular area

Hovmoller Plots Longitude-time or latitude-time plot

Animations Animations available for area plots

ASCII Output ASCII output, available for all plot types, suitable for feeding GIS or other applications

Table 1 Standard Functions in AOVAS

Future Plans

Differences commonly exist in rainfall and other products, creating uncertainty issues in monitoring activities. Functions will be included in future AOVAS to allow fast and easy identification of these uncertainties.

Agriculture Project Portal: http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/agriculture/index.shtmlAOVAS: http://agdisc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Giovanni/aovas/TOVAS: http://disc2.nascom.nasa.gov/Giovanni/tovas/TRMM Products: http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/datapool/TRMM/Details about TRMM: http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.govQuestions and comments: hydrology@disc.gsfc.nasa.gov

Data integration is a key to ensure future successes. To achieve this goal, we need to form a solution network or an alliance to address various issues.

MODIS RGB Imagery

MODIS NDVI

Weather Forecast (Courtesy: COLA)

Climate Forecast (Courtesy: COLA)

Research products and archives are important for case studies.

Near-real-time products are important for monitoring activities.

Times series plot for southern Mozambique showing a decreasing trend in rainfall in recent years (top). ASCII output can be used for further analysis (bottom).

Hovemoller diagram (top) for central Mozambique showing spatial and temporal distribution in rainfall. Animation (bottom) shows the time evolution.