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funder_partner: Esri

Climate Services for Resilient Development in South Asia (CSRD)

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on . Posted in Uncategorized.

Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) is a global partnership that connects climate and environmental science with data streams to generate decision support tools and training for decision-makers in developing countries. Translating complex climate information into easy to understand actionable formats to spread awareness in the form of climate services is core to CSRD’s mission. CSRD works across South Asia (with emphasis on Bangladesh), the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia), and in South America (Colombia) to generate and provide timely and useful climate information, decision tools and services. In South Asia, CSRD focusses the development, supply and adaptation of agricultural climate services to reduce vulnerability by increasing resiliency in smallholder farming systems. These goals are strategically aligned with the Global Framework for Climate Services.

Project description

CSRD in South Asia aims to have the impact by increasing climate resilient farm management, indicated by increased use of climate services and climate information to inform farmers on how to better manage their production systems.  CSRD also aims to develop and validate models for agricultural climate services that can be replicated in other regions with similar farming systems and climate risks, while also fine-tuning weather and climate advisories to be most useful to farmers’ decision-making. A series of sustained contributions to CSRD’s Action and Learning Framework Pillars 1-4, detailed below, are envisioned as major project outcomes:

  • Pillar 1: Create the solution space:
    CSRD works to establish a problem-focus, to engage key stakeholders, to create a platform for sustained communication and collaboration, and to build synergies among relevant programs.
  • Pillar 2: Utilize quality data, products, and tools
    CSRD provides access to useful and available information and technology, and to develop tailored products and services responsive to problem-specific needs.
  • Pillar 3: Build capacities and platforms
    CSRD supports the use of targeted products and services, and to promote sustainability, scalability, and replicability.
  • Pillar 4: Build knowledge
    A key goal of CSRD’s work is to identify and promote good practices among the global climate services community and to support research efforts and innovation that increase the effectiveness of climate services.

Outputs

CSRD in South Asia will ultimately generate the following broad outputs and services:

Download the report summarizing CSRD activities, achievements, and challenges during the first year (from November 2016 through December 2017).

The CSRD consortium in South Asia is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in partnership with the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD), Bangladesh Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), International Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), University de Passo Fundo (UPF), and the University of Rhode Island (URI). This consortium provides strength and technical expertise to develop relevant climate products that can assist farmers and other stakeholders with relevant information to improve decision making, with the ultimate goal of increasing resilience to climate-related risks. The CSRD consortium also works to assure that climate information can be conveyed in ways that are decision-relevant to farmers and other agricultural stakeholders.

As a public-private partnership, CSRD is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), UK AID, the UK Met Office, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), ESRI, Google, the American Red Cross, and the Skoll Global Threats Fund.

New initiative strengthens agricultural drought monitoring in Bangladesh

Written by on . Posted in News.

A new joint effort will strengthen or establish drought monitoring and early warning systems in Bangladesh. Photo: Santosh Raj Pathak/ICIMOD.
A new joint effort will strengthen or establish drought monitoring and early warning systems in Bangladesh. Photo: Santosh Raj Pathak/ICIMOD.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (CIMMYT) – A new joint effort will strengthen or establish drought monitoring and early warning systems in Bangladesh, as well as provide information on local cropping systems in South Asia to boost farmer resilience to climate change.

Regionally specific winter season drought and dry spells during the monsoon are a reoccurring concern in Bangladesh. Drought leads to reduced farming productivity, and climate change predictions suggest further decreases in precipitation in coming years. Additionally, there are uncertainties about where monsoons will flood in the rainy season, limiting groundwater recharge. If farmers are unable to adapt to these changes, bottlenecks in crop productivity and increased food insecurity are likely to result.

The effort will be led by Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) and SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya – a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) – using Earth observation data.

A workshop jointly hosted by a number of organizations was recently held at the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (BARC) campus in Dhaka, Bangladesh to discuss the development of these agricultural monitoring services. The workshop brought together key partners to discuss anticipated methods, work plans and the user engagement process for effective development and long-term sustainability of the agricultural drought monitoring service.

Under this partnership, BARC is working to strengthen capacity of national research and agricultural extension institutes to use geographic information systems and remote sensing approaches for drought risk management.

(L-R) Birendra Bajracharya, regional program manager at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Shams Uddin Ahmed, director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department, Muhammad Jalal Uddin, executive chairman the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council and Timothy J. Krupnik, CIMMYT systems agronomist. Photo: Santosh Raj Pathak/ICIMOD
(L-R) Birendra Bajracharya, regional program manager at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Shams Uddin Ahmed, director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department, Muhammad Jalal Uddin, executive chairman the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council and Timothy J. Krupnik, CIMMYT systems agronomist. Photo: Santosh Raj Pathak/ICIMOD

Shams Uddin Ahmed, director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department, noted that groundwater accessibility is a growing concern due to continued drought. The government has posed restrictions on deep well extraction, except for drinking water, to conserve crucial groundwater resources. He added that access to good quality drought monitoring and early warning information could help develop climate services to help farmers adapt to these challenges.

Muhammad Jalal Uddin, executive chairman of BARC, emphasized the need to adopt new technologies including remote sensing applications to improve predictability of climate hazards like floods and droughts. He added that with the adoption of improved agricultural practices, Bangladesh has become self-sufficient in rice, but that further work is needed to attain overall nutrition sufficiency.

Promoting and enabling climate services that increase farmer resilience to the impacts of climate variability can positively change behaviors and affect policy in developing countries. To do this, collaborators are working together to establish information communication technology platforms to provide user-oriented, easily accessible, timely and decision-relevant scientific information in the form of climate services.

Birendra Bajracharya, regional program manager of the Mountain Environment Regional Information System program at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), highlighted opportunities of using Earth observation data products for addressing societal challenges. He emphasized the user-centric “services” used by ICIMOD increase the sustainable use of Earth observation information and geospatial technologies for environmental management and improve resilience to climate change in the region.

Read the full workshop summary from ICIMOD here.

CSRD is a a public-private partnership supported by USAID, Department for International Development (DFID), the Met Office, Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, ESRI, Google, the American Red Cross and the Skoll Global Threats Fund.