Geo-information and remote sensing technology and its uses in in-season crop mapping and damage assessment

About the training

The GIS and Statistics Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD), Nepal and ICIMOD’s SERVIR Hindu Kush Himalaya (SERVIR-HKH) Initiative are co-developing an operational service for crop area and yield estimation using remote sensing and machine learning.

The SERVIR-HKH Initiative, a joint initiative of ICIMOD, USAID and NASA, is working on developing information services using Earth Observation (EO) and climate modelling technology. One of the key priority areas under this initiative is the capacity building of agriculture professionals on the use of new technologies to keep research aligned with recent technological developments. EO technologies have tremendous potential to support the implementation of long-term and large-scale research and development programmes and resolve data and information gaps in the agriculture sector, which include status and changes in land use, agricultural production, and resilience for food security, among many other aspects.

As part of the capacity building work, we are organising an on-the-job training for MoALD officers on the use of remote sensing data and geospatial information technology.

Objectives

The training aims to provide participants better understanding of:

• Geo-information science and EO and their uses in crop monitoring and damage assessment
• SERVIR-HKH approach on in-season crop mapping and introduction to the related tools on field data collection and crop classification apps (Geofairy and RiceMapEngine)

Participants will also visit the ICT setup at ICIMOD operationalising crop monitoring and damage assessment systems.

Expected participants

A total of six nominated officials from MoALD are expected to participate in this training.

Resource persons

• Birendra Bajracharya, Programme Coordinator, SERVIR-HKH, ICIMOD
• Faisal Mueen Qamar, Remote Sensing Specialist, ICIMOD
• Rajesh Bahadur Thapa, Senior Remote Sensing and Geoinformation Specialist, ICIMOD
• Kiran Shakya, Geospatial Application Development Specialist, ICIMOD
• Poonam Tripathi, Geospatial Training Analyst, ICIMOD
• Manish Shrestha, Hydrologist, ICIMOD
• Sravan Shrestha, Remote Sensing and Geoinformation Associate, ICIMOD
• Sarthak Shrestha, Remote Sensing and Geoinformation Associate, ICIMOD

Background

The UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 (“Zero hunger”) aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. The Government of Nepal (GoN) recognises the prevailing situation of food insecurity across the country and attaches high importance to ensuring food security for all. However, there is a need to build upon significant capacity in food security planning, monitoring and evaluation within the GoN to enable it to provide reliable and timely information to support planning and policy decision making processes.

Monitoring and estimating crop acreage at a national scale is required to determine the national or sub-national food demand and supply balance, and to gauge food security. Whether during times of world food shortages, or during periods of surplus, monitoring and estimating crop acreage requires long-term efforts. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also include doubling productivity and incomes of smallholders as key targets. Estimates and forecasts of crop area and yield are of critical importance to policy makers for the planning of agricultural production and monitoring of food supply. The operational use of open-source satellite-based and model information to monitor climate and crops at daily and seasonal levels for integrated analysis of crop performance provides a cost-effective means to support decision making processes.

Agenda