May 7th, 2019
Spatial targeting of ICT-based weather and agro-advisory services for climate risk management in agriculture
Published by Climatic Change Journal, April 16th, 2019
This paper (PDF) in the Climatic Change journal presents a scientific and integrated approach to identify areas of high agriculture vulnerability to climate change and availability of ICT services for dissemination of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) information in the vulnerable areas. The increasing frequency of climatic risks is causing significant loss of farm productivity and income in agriculturally dependent communities. Addressing climate change impacts on agriculture is a special challenge that needs efficient channeling of resources and information to strengthen farmers adaptive capacity to climate change and variability. This study presents a methodology to highlight/target broad geographical regions for designing and implementing ICT-based climate information and agro-advisory services. The study presents four regions: i) high agriculture vulnerability and low ICT services, ii) high agriculture vulnerability and high ICT services, iii) low agriculture vulnerability and low ICT services, and iv) low agriculture vulnerability and high ICT services. This simple methodology uses available data, is easy to apply, can be useful to prioritize locations for climate-smart interventions, mode of CSA information dissemination using ICT services, and increase coverage of agro-ICT services through development of ICT services in the locations where climate change impact is high and ICT services are very low. This study also showed that there is a need to improve the quality of existing climate information and agro-advisory services in the climate risk-prone areas. Similarly, use of particular types of ICT services and coverage can play a crucial role while prioritizing dissemination of climate information and agro-advisory services in the targeted locations and population. This analysis needs to be followed by further examination of the socio-economic characteristics of agriculture dependent communities to design suitable climate information and agro-advisory services and ICT for disseminating them.