Presented by W. Göbel at the CGIAR-CSI Annual Meeting 2009: Mapping Our Future. March 31 - April 4, 2009, ILRI Campus, Nairobi, Kenya

1. Update on Geospatial Activities at
ICARDA
E. De Pauw and W. Gö bel
CGIAR-CSI Meeting, ILRI, Nairobi
31 March-4 April 2009

2. Overview
Completed projects

Sunset projects

Continuing projects/activities

New projects

Publications

Interests for collaboration with

extended CSI COP

3. Completed project 1:
Ecogeographical/botanical survey
 Area covered:
 Jebel Wastani and Jebel Zawia in Idleb province,
NW Syria
 Outcomes:
 Areas identified unsuitable for rock removal
(based on biophysical and cultural criteria)
 Area identified for biodiversity conservation
 Guidelines for developing a management plan for
the proposed conservation area
 Follow-up 2009:
 Soil survey to experiment with Bayesian mapping
methods

4. Completed project 2:
Climate change maps Egypt / Tajikistan
 In support of the Expert Consultation
on Climate Change held by WFP in
Cairo, 3-4 November 2008
 High-resolution (1 km) change maps
based on the calibration method for
downscaling of average output of 21
GCM models, scenario A1B, time
frame 2080-2099

5. Example of simple downscaling:
Importance of upstream-downstream relationships
Nile Basin:

6. Sunset project 1:
CACILM
 Central Asia Sustainable Land Management
Research Project
 Multidisciplinary
 Role of GIS component:
 assist with defining recommendation domains
for technological options tested at CACILM
benchmark sites through
 Characterization of benchmark sites
 Mapping similarity in climate, land use,
topography and soils
 New soil map for Central Asia through
compilation of national maps

7. Sunset project 2:
Agroecological Zoning Egypt
 In association with the Agricultural
Research Council (ARC) of Egypt
 Integrating climate, land use and soil
information to identify areas with
similar irrigation management needs

8. Sunset project 3:
Turkey Land Suitability Mapping
 Ongoing country-level assessment of
agroecological zones and land suitability for 20
crops
 Finalized agroclimatic and agroecological
zoning of Turkey
 Completing now land suitability component
 Outcome for use in other projects:
 Models for score-based qualitative crop suitability
assessments
 Advantages: more robust, flexible, cheaper and
easier to use in large-area suitability assessments
with limited datasets
 Disadvantage: no direct link to yield expectation

9. Sunset project 4:
Sudan (Resource) Poverty Mapping
 Components
Mapping agricultural potential regions of Sudan

Characterizing the natural resources constraints and potential

and the production systems of the agricultural potential
regions
Characterizing natural resource potential and poverty by state

in Sudan
Household surveys in selected regions for validation

 Adaptation of a methodology developed in Syria
 Problems for completing the study:
New census data not yet released by Sudan government

Without population density data not possible to spatialize the

per-capita income from agriculture
Use of remote sensing: above-ground biomass assessment using

MODIS imagery

10. SUDAN Above-ground biomass

11. Northern Darfur
Western Darfur
Southern Darfur

12. Continuing projects/activities
 In the context of climate change research
 Enabling current agroclimatic analyses for future
climate
 Trend analysis and drought mapping in the
non-tropical drylands; mapping of
interannual climatic variability
 Based on analysis of CRU and GPCC data sets
 Update of the ICARDA Agroclimate Tool
 Better weather generator, better spatialization
methods -> truly site-specific recommendations
and crop monitoring

13. Central Asia

14. Central Asia

15. New project 1:
Water harvesting in Libya
 Agroecological zoning of Libya
 Mapping and characterization of agricultural
regions
 Spatial analysis of potential for specific
water harvesting techniques
 based on improved Syria methodology
 at higher resolution (1:50,000 scale in
agricultural regions of Libya)
 Better data availability Libya (especially soils)
 Improvements in assessment of runoff/run-on
relationships and for macro-catchment systems

16. New project 2:
Climate change impact
assessments in Central Asia
 Funded by Asian Development Bank
 GIS component involves mapping for selected
‘futures’(models, time frames and emission scenarios):
 basic climate surfaces with medium-resolution for
selected futures
 drought risk (probabilities of not exceeding critical
precipitation levels) for climates of the selected futures
 shifts in suitability for land use systems (specific crops,
rangelands), using land suitability models
 projected shifts of agro-ecosystems (agroecological
zones, agricultural regions, land use systems)
 recommendation domains for CACILM technologies
most relevant for CC
 Partner: IFPRI

17. New project 3:
Mapping wheat growing areas
 Component of ‘Durable Resistance to
Rust in Wheat’:
 Funded by B&MGF
 Objective 3 ‘Tracking Wheat Rust
Pathogens’ maps of wheat growing areas
 GISU role: 1-km resolution mapping of
wheat growing areas in West and South Asia
 2009:
 Syria covered
 Methodology for outscaling to rest of West and
South Asia

18. Publications 1: Publications 2:
Country-level assessment of land Country-level assessment of land
suitability for water harvesting suitability for supplemental irrigation

19. Publications 3: Agroecological zoning Publications 4: Ecogeographical and
and similarity mapping Karkhe River botanical survey in Idleb Province,
Basin, Iran - Ecogeographical and NW Syria
botanical survey

20. GIS in ICARDA
 GIS is now ‘mainstreamed’ in ICARDA
 Work with all research programs in
several projects
 Consensus about staff time recovery (no
more free lunches)

21. Center-wide initiatives of interest
 Probabilistic methods of soil
property and crop distribution
mapping
 Climate change impact
assessments from biophysical
and socioeconomic perspectives