Open source geoprocessing tools and meteorological satellite data for crop risk zones monitoring in Sub-Saharan Africa

In Sub-Saharan Africa analysis tools and models based on meteorological satellites data have been developed within different national and international cooperation initiatives, with the aim of allowing a better monitoring of the cropping season. In most cases, the software was a stand-alone application and the upgrading, in terms of analysis functions, database and hardware maintenance, was difficult for the National Meteorological Services (NMSs) in charge of agro-hydro-meteorological monitoring. The web-based solution proposed in this work intends to improve and ensure the sustainability of applications to support national Early Warning Systems (EWSs) for food security. The Crop Risk Zones (CRZ) model for Niger and Mali, integrated in a web-based open source framework, has been implemented using PL/pgSQL & PostGIS functions to process different meteorological data sets: a) the rainfall precipitation forecast images from Global Forecast System (GFS) b) the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Rainfall Estimation (RFE) for Africa c) Multi-Sensor Precipitation Estimate (MPE) images from EUMETSAT Earth Observation Portal d) the MOD16 Global Terrestrial Evapotranspiration Data Set. Restful Web Services upload raster images into the PostgreSQL/PostGIS database. PL/pgSQL functions are used to run the CRZ model to identify installation and phenological phases of the main crops in the Region and to create crop risk zones images. This model is focused on the early identification of risks and the production of information for food security within the time prescribed for decision-making. The challenge and the objective of this work is to set up an open access monitoring system, based on meteorological open data providers, targeting NMSs and any other local decision makers for drought risk reduction and resilience improvement.