AGROMETEOROLOGICAL WARNING SYSTEM FOR SÃO PAULO STATE-BRAZIL

Orivaldo Brunini(1), Pedro Luis Gardia Abramides(2) Marcelo Bento Paes de Camargo(2), Mário José Pedro Júnior(2), José Ricardo Macedo Pezzopane(2), Andrew Patrick Ciarelli Brunini(2), Gabriel Constantino Blain(2), Glauco de Souza Rolim(2),Rafael Vasconcelos

Ribeiro(2) , Wanderley Antonio Tremocoldi(2)

(1)Institute of Agronomy – Agrometeorology Information Center-Ecophysiology and Biophysics Department; brunini@iac.sp.gov.br

Avenida Barão de Itapura, 1481 – Campinas – São Paulo – Brasil. (2)Institute of Agronomy – Agrometeorology Information Center-Ecophysiology and Biophysics Department; Av. Barão de Itapura, 1481 - Campinas – São Paulo – Brasil

Abstract

The Agrometeorology and Information Center (CIIAGRO) was established in 1988 with the aim to carry out applied climate studies to agricultural activities and to transfer

agrometeorological informations and counseling to farmers and extension service personal. The CIIAGRO is located at the Ecophysiology and Biophysics Department (IAC – SAA).

Daily weather parameters are monitored twice a day and collected from an Automated Weather Station Network (AWN). Data are analyzed and subjected to quality control in an

Oracle Data Bank System and from this the weather elements are on line transferred to CIIAGRO Advisory System which uses the My-SQL, or SQL languages to produce

agrometeorological informations and bulletins. On-line products which are make available for the public are: Crop Water Requirements; Drought Indices as Standardized Precipitation

Index, Palmer Drought Severity Index, Standardized Evapotranspiration Index Flooding Warning System, Crop Water Drought Indices, Fire Risk Indices, and many others. All these indices are transformed into agroclimatic maps using Surfer and GIS technology.

Key words: early warning system. Agrometeorological bulletins, advisory system 1. INTRODUCTION

The most recent scenarios determined by the IPCC, describe a overall sharp increase in global temperatures, which in turn, lead to an increase in meteorological events such as: drought, flooding, frost and hurricanes. Thus, mankind has to adapt and develop methodologies and strategies to overcome these climatic, meteorological and agronomical adversities and its effects on society.

Considering that 70% or more of these extremes and adversities are directly related to meteorological aspects, in order to determine efficient pro-active strategies and measures, the monitoring of the meteorological variables must be continuous, practical and agile. With the advances in the technologies related to the development of sensors and data gathering systems, the monitoring of the environmental variables have reached a high degree of quality and reliability. This has led to the creation and installation of a network of automatic meteorological stations in several countries, to meet the demands for

generating technologies and scientific knowledge to overcome the meteorological variability and to reduce the negative impacts of climate constraints on crop yield and food production

The agricultural area, from a socio-economical standpoint, is no doubt the most favored segment from the introduction of an agro-meteorological development policy in the country. Independent of its strong contribution to the gross internal product (GIP) of the country and its elevated capability of bringing resources due to exports, the agro-silvo-pastoral activities can be a direct cause on the decrease of social differences and the eradication of absolute poverty.

Considering that farmers come to carry out their agricultural activities according to orientation from Research Institutes in Agrometeorology, Meteorology and Hydrology, it is possible to save annually close to 20 million US$ Dollars in the phytochemical treatment of sugar cane alone, 10 million US$ Dollars on vineyards, 10 million US$ on coffee plantations or even avoid the unnecessary daily consumption of water for irrigation in volumes enough to supply a city with a population of 3,000,000 people . The environmental improvement must also be taken into consideration due to smaller use of pesticides. An increment in the global value of agricultural activities, consequently depends on adequate orientation on the effects of meteorological and climatic changes in agriculture so as to reduce risk of extreme phenomena.

Agricultural activities in the State of São Paulo, regardless of its development and technology is frequently burdened by climatic adversities such as frost, hail, droughts, out of season heat waves or excess rainfall. Pest and disease resulting from hot and humid weather demand frequent application of pesticides, which affect the health of the population and cause environmental pollution and an increase in food production costs, specially if employed in an indiscriminate manner.

More than one century of agricultural research – with the foundation of the Campinas Agronomic Institute in 1887 – allows the Agriculture and Supply Secretariat to state that all factors described above can at least be mitigated. The assurance of continuous supplying and productive activity by farmers are the immediate benefits of the reduction or extinction of weather generated catastrophes. Probability studies of such events, forecast and fight against frost and hail in favorable sowing periods, are examples of available and possible technologies to be used by farmers. The high level of businessmen and the organization of farmers into associations indicate the existence of customers and potential interest in the use of agrometeorological reports that influence rational day-to-day decision making for agricultural companies, reducing the amount of irrigation or application of pesticides, among other operations. In the present stage of agrometeorology, climatology and meteorology development in general, the cause and effect relation is little noticed among the advances obtained through researches in the institutes and universities and needs of potential users in the various areas of application.

Besides the more than 100 years of activities of the Instituto Agronômico de Campinas (Campinas’s Agronomic Institute) which associated to the several activities of State Universities in São Paulo (USP, UNESP), private Universities, Official and Private Research Offices, ensure the continuous food supply derived from productive actions developed by farmers. This represents immediate benefits such as the reduction or eradication of catastrophes generated by climatic events.

2. ADVISORY AND WARNING SYSTEM The direct use of agro meteorological information in agriculture is very recent in Brazil and the State of São Paulo has been developing activities in this field through the Integrated Agrometeorological Information Center (CIIAGRO). The Agrometeorology and Information Center (CIIAGRO) was established in 1988 with the aim to carry out applied climate studies to agricultural activities and to transfer agrometeorological informations and counseling to farmers and extension service personal. The CIIAGRO is located at the Ecophysiology and Biophysics Department (IAC – SAA). The basic concept is to carry on practical meteorological information to support agricultural activities and to reduce and to mitigate negative impacts of weather and climate on crops. For such a reason the warning and advisory system was updated to give better support to agriculture activities and farmers and be reliable using daily input from the Weather Stations in São Paulo State, these informations are based on the Automated Weather Stations Network and are complemented by the mechanical weather Stations(3,4). Daily weather parameters are monitored twice a day and collected from an Automated Weather Station Network (AWN), and from the Mechanical Network. Data are analyzed and subjected to quality control in an Oracle Data Bank System and from this the weather elements are on line transferred to CIIAGRO Advisory System. The system was developed with the aim of operate and to make available drought warning and informations to agricultural activities, on the basis of agrometeorological parameters. It consists of on line for data input and data management modules, based on WEB aspects. The data are directly inserted from the meteorological stations into the input module, from that the warnings and informations related to drought are made available in real time, through INTERNET. The basic meteorological data are: rainfall, and maximum and minimum air temperatures of 130 places of different regions in the state of São Paulo, recorded in the system, consisted, evaluated and transformed into agricultural parameters and returned in tables and maps, with daily bulletin and drought indices. The drought indices are divided in two categories; as meteorological indices (SPI, Palmer, ETM/ETP); and agrometeorological indices (CMI, water supply and water stresses of culture, and crop development). The system was developed using HTML, ASP, VbScript e SQL languages, with data communication WEB and database server by ODBC source, and the MySQL database is the principal database system ( 3,5,6). The informations can be obtained at city level, and consolidated to the level of Administrative Region, Regional Agricultural Development Office – EDR/CATI, Management of Water Resources Unit – UGRHI, and Regional Research Unit Center. 3. AGROMETEOROLOGICAL INFORMATIONS AND CROP MONITORING

In function of the collected parameters, the crop development conditions are monitored and evaluated, and specific aspects related to available water in the soil, water balance, crop response to weather, monthly weather reports are made and distributed to farmers and others users. Figure 1 represents the overall web-site of CIIAGRO of the IAC since 1989, which transfer to the agricultural sector information on the weather conditions, water availability in the soil, probability of the occurrence of diseases, hail, drought, and the effects of these abnormalities on plant life and how decision making can be optimized as a function of agro meteorological bulletins. These actions have a straight partnership with UNESP through the Campi of Ilha Solteira, Jaboticabal and Botucatu.,National Weather Service, and National Space and Research Institute.

Some of the informations directly made available for agriculture users are: a) orientation of the agricultural and livestock planning activities; b) agroclimatic regionalizing of different crops as function of water and thermal

requirements c) agricultural calendar and sowing and harvesting planning; d) drought monitoring; and environmental stress; crop zoning and risks assessment

related to climate variability e) agro-meteorological monitoring of coffee, citrus and sugar cane crops.

Figure 1- WEB site indicating the agrometeorological informations available .

The organization of an updated database for the State of São Paulo enables probability studies directed towards climatic risks for the agricultural, tourism, civil defense and transportation sectors among others. In this case the studies will refer to recurrence intervals of meteorological extremes or the probabilities of meso scale events that affect the normal development of a climate, as for example the El Niño or the La Niña. Figure 2 describes the monitoring of drought parameters, emphasizing drought indices as SPI and Palmer( 5,6)

. Figure 2- Overall view of the drought and monitoring and counseling system for São Paulo State. Appropriate informations for specific crops as :Sugar Cane ,Coffee and Citrus are daily performed and make them available at the web, as indicated in Figure 3.

Figure 3- Coffee agrometeorological information system for São Paulo State, based on CIIAGRO There are several methods to quantify and to monitor drought and the probability that such a event may occur. Most of the indices have been used to parameterize the spatial and temporal occurrence of drought, and the majority of the indices developed were based

on rainfall; (1,2). Actually there is a great tendency to incorporate crops and soil characteristics and the statistics of rainfall distribution for each location to better understand the phenomenon and the overall effects. Weekly CIIAGRO, carries out drought analyses, based on SPI, CMI, Palmer and other related indices. A specific methodology was developed to quantify drought stress on crops, this index is presented on table 1. In such analyses the drought parameter is determined as function of the ratio between actual and potential evapotranspiration, and available water in the soil.

Table 1- Water Stress and crop conditions- Period :10/03/2006 - 20/03/2006

Place Root Depth-cm ACWS Crop Conditions

Campinas 25 0,88 Críticas

Campinas 50 0,18 Favoráveis

Valinhos 25 0,47 Razoáveis

Valinhos 50 0,12 Favoráveis

Another index currently derived is SPI, this parameter is useful to evaluate crop conditions regarding rainfall anomaly, as well as to verify the regarding water reservoirs volumes. SPI in a month period ( SPI-1) is presented in figure 4.

Figure 4- Monthly SPI values for São Paulo State, for march- 2006. The components of the research associated with the modernizing an expansion of the infrastructure give support for the “Agrometeorological Warning System for São Paulo; and as described before, there is a growing demand for weather variables in real time to support several activities. For instance , Civil Defense Department is very concerned with flooding and fire risks. In such aspects these maps of fire risks and Meteorological Conditions are ON-line derived every day and available to be assessed by web. Figures 5 and 6 describe fire risks and meteorological conditions

. Figure 5- Meteorological conditions for São Paulo State based on daily rainfall and evapotranspiration.

Figure 6- Fire risk conditions for São Paulo State based on Angstron’s formulae.

4. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1-OGALLO, L.J. 1989. Drought and desertification - WMO - TD no 286. 76pg. 2-BRUNINI, O.; PINTO, H.S.; ZULLO, J.; BLAIN, G.C. & BRUNINI, A.P.C. 2001. Uso

do SPI para avaliação dos períodos de seca no Estado de São Paulo. In "Anais XII Congresso Brasileiro de Agrometeorologia. Fortaleza - CE. 3 a 6 de julho - pg. 251-252.

3-BRUNINI, O. & PINTO, H.S. 1998. Sistema de Aconselhamento Agormeteorológico. In "II Congresso Brasileiro de Biometeorologia, 1998 - Goiania - Anais - pg. 15-37.

4-BRUNINI, O. 1995. "Uso das informações agrometeorológicas e manejo de estação meteorológica automática". Mimeografado - 82p. - Ribeirão Preto - São Paulo - Technical Course - August 22-24, 1992.

5-Mc Kee, T.B.; DOESKEN, N.J. & KLEIST, J. 1993. The relationship of drought frequency and duration of time scales - Eight Conf. On Applied Climatology - Anaheim - CA - AMS - pg. 179-184.

6-PALMER, W.C. 1965. Meteorologic drought - US Weather Bureau . Res. Paper 45, 58pg.