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IWMIDSP Phase III Release Note November 18, 2005 |
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Dear IWMIDSP User Community, We are delighted to announce the release of the International Water Management Institute’s Data Storehouse Pathway’s (IWMIDSP) Phase III. In Phase III, we have focused not just on data and products, but a suite of other services. These are aimed at IWMI researchers, Challenge Program for Water and Food (CPWF) researchers, and for the entire global research community interested in using spatial data and related services pertaining to water and land resources. The overarching goal of the IWMIDSP is to serve as a platform for Global Public Good (GPG) spatial data and products. There are also advanced satellite sensor and GIS data and products in phase III. Also, Look for some exciting ground truth data sets gathered for 3 key IWMI research projects: (a) Irrigated area mapping, (b) water productivity mapping, and (c) wetland mapping. The specific advances made and services provided in phase III are outlined below: 1. Dummies guide on how to search images We are in an age of plentiful remote sensing (RS) datasets. Most people looking for RS data are confused and do not know how to go about looking for images they need. Often they come with questions: “What images do I need?, where do I get them?, are they free or do I have to pay?, how to I task satellites for ensuring timely images are taken?, and so on and so forth”. These and numerous other questions are common. The key to looking for satellite sensor data is to follow a protocol on where to look images. For example, if you are looking for historical Landsat images, first look at free sources and if you do not get what you wanted there, go looking for places where you can make a nominal payment and obtain images. On the other hand, if you have a project and are not sure what images you need, the dummies guide gives you the ‘know how”. The dummies guide also provides a step-by-step approach that even a novice can follow and start looking for images. So here is your chance to become an “expert” in how to look for images. In order to do so, start with dummies guide on how to search for images. 2. Degree confluence project’s Ground Truth Data of the World (DCP GTW) Nearly 973 "ground truth" data points, spread across the world, from precise locations have been organized in GIS format (e.g., Arcview, Arcinfo) and made available through IWMIDSP DCP GTW (also see Figure 1). The data from each location consists of latitude, longitude, land use type, and hot links to photographs. This data is then converted to GIS formats (Lat/long, WGS84).
The degree confluence project (http://www.confluence.org/) is an organized sampling of the World by Volunteers from around the Globe. The idea is to get precise GPS reading for every 1 degree by 1 degree location along with photograph and a storyline. There are about 16,000 grids of, 1 degree by 1 degree, needed to complete the entire terrestrial World, of which about 4000 have been completed so far (http://www.confluence.org/). The application for the DCP ground-truth data of the World from IWMI (DCP-GT-World) is multi-fold and will include ground truth evaluations and accuracy assessments for land use/land cover, field reconnaissance of the World, planning tool for field missions, and natural resources assessments. Already DCP-GT-World has been used in the IWMI’s global map of irrigated area (http://www.confluence.org/). Full credits to all the contributing volunteers and for the DCP team (http://www.confluence.org/). The GIS organization of this effort is credited to IWMIDSP team listed at the end of this message. About 1.4 terabyte of additional streamlined remote sensing and GIS (RS/GIS) Data has been released to an already existing data from Phase I and II. With this, the total data made available through IWMIDSP is about 3 terabytes. The newly added data consists of: Additional data have been added for the IWMI and CP benchmark river basins (See Figure 2). These basins include: Yellow river (China), Nile river (Egypt and 9 other basin countries), Indo-Gangetic (India and Pakistan), Karkeh (Iran), Mekong (Thailand, Cambodia), Ruhuna including system C irrigation project (Sri Lanka), Rechana Doab (Pakistan), Sao-francisco (Brazil), and Virtual Andes (Colombia, Chile and few other Countries). In addition data have also been made available for Godavari river basin (India). Look into these datasets especially in "dataset 3" and "dataset 4".
Some of the spatial data for the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) river basins (http://www.na.unep.net/gewex/) are re-distributed through IWMIDSP. The GEWEX is a program initiated by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) "to observe, understand and model the hydrological cycle and energy fluxes in the atmosphere, at land surface and in the upper oceans" (see GEWEX web site: http://www.gewex.org/gewex_overview.html). The GEWEX program uses data from advanced Earth Observing System (EOS) era satellite sensor data for hydrological and land surface applications in a number of river basins from across the world. These data re re-distributed via IWMIDSP permission from Dr. Eugene A Fosnight of USGS; also Dr. Ashibindu Singh of UNEP http://www.na.unep.net/gewex/. 3.3 South Asia Landsat mosaics The Landsat mosaics of the South Asia (Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan) were constituted for 1970s, 1990s, and 2000s. The Landsat 7-band ETM+ mosaic of the 2000’s is shown in Figure 3.
A number of new RS/GIS datasets have been organized for Morocco, Ethiopia, Namibia, Thailand, Tunisia, Vietnam, and South Africa. These datasets consists of: images of Tsunami affected areas, basin boundaries, river, road and rail network, town locations, agrohydrology atlas, and groundwater resource maps..... 3.5 Tsunami satellite sensor data catalogue (http://tsdc.iwmi.org): IWMI and CSI collaboration The Tsunami Satellite Sensor Data Catalogue (TSSDC) is a collaborative effort between the IWMI RS/GIS unit and the CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI). The data consists of very high resolution images from Quickbird and and numerous other satellites (e.g., SPOT, Landsat). The images cover the entire Tsunami affected areas of the world (see Figure 4) and are catalogued for "before" and "after" tsunami dates.
The TSSDC is now coordinated and made accessible through the CGIAR CSI (http://csi.cgiar.org) through a dedicated gateway (http://tsdc.iwmi.org). For further information on the CGIAR-CSI, please contact Dr. Robert Zomer. We want to acknowledge all data providers and the great service provided by the disaster response unit, SAIC (Dr. Brenda K. Jones, disaster response coordinator), and USGS EROS (Dr. James Verdin, Head of the International Program). The Japanese Earth Resources Satellite 1 (JERS-1) Synthetic Aperture Radar is a L-band (24.5 cm wavelength) imaging radar with initial full-resolution of 18 m, that is processed to 100-m, mosaicked and made available for the entire contiguous rainforests of Amazonia, and Central Africa (see Figure 5). The original source of the data is from: http://southport.jpl.nasa.gov/GRFM/
4.0 IWMI’s Global Map of Irrigated Areas (IWMI GMIA) IWMI’s Global Map of Irrigated Areas (IWMI GMIA) IWMI has just released version 1.0 of the Global map of irrigated area (GMIA) (see Figure 6). A dedicated site (http://www.iwmigmia.org) provides all the data and documentation related to GMIA.
The area irrigated at the end of the last millennium for the entire world was estimated as 637 million hectares (see Figure 7) of which the seasonal distribution of the areas were: (a) 317,960,831 hectares during June-September, (b) 194,255,688 hectares during October-February, and (c) 125,220,366 hectares during March-May.
There is also an interactive web mapper of GMIA (http://dw.iwmi.org/gmia) developed with support from Dr. Pierre Marchand, Asghar and Ata. The metadata of the IWMIDSP data is ingested into globally accepted metadata gateways such as FGDC and GeoNetwork. At present 100 % metadata records of the Limpopo and Ruhuna river basin IWMIDSP data are in the FGDC (http://clearinghouse3.fgdc.gov/), GeoNetwork (http://geonetwork.csi.cgiar.org) and IWMIDSP (http://www.iwmidsp.org/iwmi/metadata/index.asp) gateways. Please search IWMIDSP metadata at FGDC , GeoNetwork and IWMIDSP nodes through these links. The plan is to complete the entire IWMIDSP metadata by middle of year 2006. 6.0 Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI) and IWMI RS/GIS unit IWMI is an active member of the CGIAR wide CSI. The collaboration includes:
Please visit CSI (http://cgiar.csi.org). 7.0 Re-organization of contents You will notice that the IWMIDSP site has been re-organized and updated. These efforts include:
We have also updated the contents to reflect the latest materials. For RS/GIS related positions at IWMI please Click here. The IWMIDSP was first released in June 2004. Currently, we have 1500 registered users. Each month over 1500 visitors (see Figure 8) from over 60 Countries (see Figure 9) visit IWMIDSP and download in excess of 100 GB.
10.0 The IWMI Philosophy and Strategy towards Spatial Data (draft) Currently, IWMI is developing its philosophy and strategy for spatial data (see a overview in Figure 10). A draft document entitled: "The IWMI Philosophy and Strategy towards Spatial Data: Remote Sensing and GIS Data and Products in IWMI Research and their Gateway through IWMIDSP" by Prasad S. Thenkabail is reviewed by the management. Those interested in enhancing this document can discuss it with Dr. Prasad Thenkabail.
11.0 Ground Truth Data for Irrigated area, water productivity mapping, and wetland mapping Recently, IWMI put in major efforts in collecting ground truth data related: (a) irrigated areas, (b) water productivity, and (c) wetlands. The data are made available in standard proprietary software formats and include excel, arcview shape files, and hot links to geo-specific digital photos. These data were collected for: 11.1 Irrigated area ground truth data for India This ground truth (GT) mission collected data from 393 specific locations and over 100 polygons. About 12,000 kilometers were traversed to collect this data (see Figure 11). The data consisted of crop types, cropping pattern, crop calendar, watering method (e.g., irrigation, rainfed), land use/land cover, irrigation type (e.g., ground water, surface water), irrigation intensity (e.g., number of hours of pumping), percent canopy cover, and a host of other parameters.
11.2 Water productivity ground truth data for Syr Darya and Krishna river basins Water productivity mapping has started in different river basins. As a start, we have gathered ground truth data in Krishna and Syr Darya river basins. The geo-specific data consists of crop types, cropping pattern, watering method (e.g., irrigated, rainfed), crop calendar, land use/land cover, crop biomass, crop yield, spectroradiometer, and digital photos (e.g., see Figure 12).
11.3 Wetland ground truth data in the Ruhuna and Limpopo river basins The wetland delineation, mapping, and characterization using satellite sensor data are supported by extensive ground truth (GT) data. The geo-specific GT data for wetlands consists of wetland location, type, their characteristics (e.g., width, shape, seasonality of water), land use/land cover, and digital photos. The GT locations are shown below for Ruhuna (e.g., Figure 13) and Limpopo (e.g., Figure 14).
12.0 IWMIDSP data access and dissemination policy There is increasing demand on the IWMIDSP data from user’s around the world. Thereby, we now have a clear policy in place on IWMIDSP data and product access and dissemination. For questions related to IWMIDSP please contact Praveen Noojipady with CC to Manohar velpuri, Chandrashekhar Biradar, and Prasad Thenkabail. Kind regards,
IWMIDSP Team members: |
