Global Crop Yield Model Development
Client: Commodity Hedgers Inc. and WeatherPredict Inc.
Location: Asheville, NC & Raleigh, NC
High quality assessment of agriculture productivity is a topic of increasing concern to the private and public sectors of the national and international economy. Private companies and public organizations such as the USDA are interested in the development of tools that substantially improve the suite of products that are used to assess and monitor crop conditions and their impact on final yield. Tools to assess and monitor agriculture at a global scale are invaluable in support of commercial and government efforts regarding global food security and international trade.
Resource Data has been closely involved in the development of SSMI-based (Special Sensor Microwave/Imager) crop monitoring and yield modeling applications since 2003. RDI has provided data management and development, and GIS support for these projects with Commodity Hedgers Inc. and WeatherPredict Inc.
Developed Parcel-based Density Analysis Tool (P-DAT)
Client: USFWS, Warren Wilson College and RENCI-NEMAC, UNCA Asheville.
Location: Asheville, NC
As parcels are subdivided, buildings and infrastructure are developed, and on average, the land is used more intensively. Conservation planning stakeholders in Western North Carolina including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, academic institutions, and GIS consultants began in 2004 to develop a simple, generic, and low-cost measurement process based on cadastral data. The juried publication resulting from this study describes how parcel density can be used to measure spatial and temporal changes on landscape from parcel density metrics. http://www.journalconsplanning.org/2009/JCP_V5_5_Thomas.pdf
Watershed Diagnostic Study of the Little Calumet—Galien River Watershed
Client: Applied Ecological Services and Indiana DNR
Location: Calumet-Galien Watershed. Indiana
The Little Calumet-Galien River watershed covers nearly one-half million acres of land including rural communities, highly industrialized areas, urban centers, high quality natural areas, miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, and a variety of other land uses and cover types. The watershed has been studied extensively at a variety of levels, and therefore there exists an abundance of biological, water quality, demographic, geographical, and other information. This watershed study supplements the existing understanding of conditions as described by others.
This study summarizes and integrates the plethora of information available on this study area, fills in information gaps necessary to meet project goals and presents BMP recommendations which have been customized to address the various land uses and their related water quality threats, and potential opportunities for mitigation. http://www.in.gov/dnr/lakemich/pdf/calumet.pdf
Natural Resources Inventory (NRI)
Client: Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) and Applied Ecological Services
Location: Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas
The Kansas City metropolitan region historically was the gateway to the Great Plains, and to this day it harbors high quality natural resources and vegetative species reminiscent of those seen by early settlers. In the 150 years since settlement, communities comprising this 3,000 square mile region have grown and changed the environment of these natural resources, and these once abundant resources have diminished greatly. Now in the 21st Century, there is wide recognition that a coherent natural resource inventory is needed in the region. This natural resource inventory will be a wealth of information that can be used to plan for the future growth of our region and preserve valuable natural assets which benefit the people who live here.
http://www.marc.org/Environment/Smart_Growth/NRI/index.htm and http://www.marc.org/Environment/Smart_Growth/pdf/exec_summary.pdf
Milwaukee Watershed Conservation Planning for Flood Control
Client: The Conservation Fund and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewer District.
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
More than a million people live and work in the Milwaukee metro area; many in flood prone neighborhoods. For the past seven years, The Conservation Fund has helped the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District fight flooding by managing “Greenseams,” a program that has protected over 2,000 acres of key lands containing water-absorbent (hydric) soils. Resource Data was instrumental, early in the project, to model, identify and rank properties that had significant flood storage potential.
http://www.conservationfund.org/node/144
Estimating Hydrological Variability for Treaty Compliance in International River Basins
Client: Weather Predict Consulting and the Development Economics Research Group, World Bank.
Policy makers of international river basins may be faced with higher hydrologic variability due to climate change. This variability would increase the probability of flow below treaty specifications, leading to non-compliance; conversely, unanticipated high flow events could lead to flooding damage and/or fatalities. Additional knowledge in actual trends of runoff variability and a realistic set of flow probabilities can allow the policy makers to define the terms of low and high flow distribution of the water resources, in advance of an extreme event. This project develops and applies a method to incorporate gauge station runoff and satellite data to provide estimates of monthly runoff in near real time. Satellite data with global coverage can provide continuous surface runoff data for the entire basin and quantify the amount of runoff per basin in near real time. Gauge data are calibrated to the wetness values derived from satellite data (using the Basist Wetness Index) in the explored basins. These relationships are tested in five international basins. Individual models are calibrated on the overlapping period of record available in these basins. The product is a set of models that predicts flow and identifies the distributions and probability of various flow levels. We also tested the accuracy of the models in a couple regions, by evaluating their skill in predicting actual flow in recent years. Results clearly demonstrate the value of these models in providing realistic probability of flow in near real-time. Resource Data provided GIS and data analysis support for this project.