Eddy De Pauw - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Eddy De Pauw

Encyclopedia of Natural Resources: Land, 2014

World Soils Book Series, 2018

... Jebel Zawia and Jebel Wastani E. De Pauw, A. Khatib, A. Shehadeh, W. Wu, N. Batikha, A. Amri ... more ... Jebel Zawia and Jebel Wastani E. De Pauw, A. Khatib, A. Shehadeh, W. Wu, N. Batikha, A. Amri International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) June 2008 ... A Q3-4-T Pleistocene, Upper Quaternary, recent undifferentiated (loams, sandy loams, grits). ...

Mapping of agricultural resource poten al of North and Southern Sudan-Part 3. Sudan Rural Poverty... more Mapping of agricultural resource poten al of North and Southern Sudan-Part 3. Sudan Rural Poverty Analysis This is Part 3 of a study, presented in three reports that detail the results of a poverty assessment and mapping project in North and Southern Sudan. The study's objec ve was to produce a rural poverty analysis and poverty maps for North and Southern Sudan, and based on these findings, recommend agricultural interven ons that can help reduce poverty. These findings provided an input to the IFAD Sudan Country Program 2007-2012, that takes into considera on the new cons tu onal changes in Sudan resul ng from the peace agreements with South/ East/West Sudan and to support peace, security and stability in Sudan. o Poverty assessment in Northern Sudan-Part 1 o Poverty assessment in Southern Sudan-Part 2 o Mapping of agricultural resource poten al of North and Southern Sudan-Part 3. Mapping of agricultural resource poten al of North and Southern Sudan This sec on provides detailed maps of different agro-ecological, clima c, and soil indices. These have been combined into agricultural resource poten al indices. Key findings of the assessment: General state of the economy and agriculture Sudan's economic structure has undergone a major shi over the past two decades (DTIS 2008), the main drivers of this change are the discovery of oil in the early 2000s and the expansion in services dominated by telecommunica ons, transport, and construc on. Agriculture used to be the leading economic sector, forming typically more than 40% of GDP, but has lost much ground with a drop of its GDP share to 33% in 2007. A more drama c trend has been the deteriora on in the contribu on of agriculture to the country's exports, declining to some 3% in 2007 down from an average of 74% in the 1996-1998 period. Both the rela ve share and the absolute value of agricultural exports has declined. Data from the Central Bank of Sudan reveals an annual trend value of $71,500. Both income poverty and general human poverty are concerns for North and Southern Sudan. There is considerable depriva on in educa on and health, and poor households are par cularly disadvantaged. Yet, despite the current fragile situa on of Sudan's agriculture, this study found that the countries have enormous poten al to raise crop yields by bridging at least part of its current 'yield gaps'-between actual and poten al food produc on. These vary from 46% to as high as 566% between on-farm trials and prevailing commercial produc vity. Irrigated crops can be improved by margins ranging from about 50% to > 140%. Even higher yield poten al have been iden fied for rainfed crops-where poten al margins ranged from twofold to over fivefold. Prerequisites for achieving these levels of development and macroeconomic stability require an ambi ous development plan that includes: crea on of a sound financial system and an efficient federal system through more decentraliza on, coupled with adequate financial and technical resources and par cipatory mechanisms, and the just income and wealth distribu on. Northern Sudan assessment: Key findings and recommenda ons (see Part 1) The results of the Northern Sudan Poverty Assessment show higher rural than urban poverty, in the six regions studied. This rural-urban disparity was mainly due to the rural-urban differences in food composi ons and food prices. However, in absolute terms the number of rural poor was greater than of urban poor. Higher poverty incidence in rural areas is a due to chronic low produc vity and low income in rural areas.

Encyclopedia of Soil Science, Third Edition, 2017

Monitoring and Predicting Agricultural Drought, 2005

The countries of North Africa and West Asia, hereafter referred to as the “Near East,” cover a la... more The countries of North Africa and West Asia, hereafter referred to as the “Near East,” cover a large part of the world (more than 7,200,000 km2). This region is characterized by diverse but generally dry climates, in which evaporation exceeds precipitation. The level of aridity is indicated by the aridity index, the ratio of annual precipitation to annual potential evapotranspiration, calculated by the Penman method (UNESCO, 1979). The degree of aridity is shown spatially in figure 16.1 and summarized per country in table 16.1. These data show that the region is characterized by humid, subhumid, semiarid, and arid to hyperarid moisture regimes. In addition, temperature regimes vary considerably, particularly due to the differences in altitudes and, to a lesser extent, due to the oceanic/continental influences. For most of the region, the precipitation generally occurs during the October–April period and thus is concentrated over the winter season. Table 16.1 shows that, with more th...

Prospects to assess and explore largely untapped plant genetic resources (PGR) collections to sea... more Prospects to assess and explore largely untapped plant genetic resources (PGR) collections to search for climate change related traits, such as drought and heat tolerance, as well as pest and disease resistance, are possible through new approaches such as the focused identification of germplasm strategy (FIGS). FIGS approach is based on the paradigm that any germplasm is likely to reflect the selection pressures of the environment under which it evolved. The approach uses trait and environmental data (climate data including phenology data) to develop a priori information based on the quantification of the trait-environment relationship. If a dependency between the trait and the environment is detected, the a priori information is then used to define subsets of accessions with a high probability of containing the sought after traits. The subsets of accessions are then used for a posteriori evaluation. Recent research comparing a priori and a posteriori information supports the assert...

atlas-conferences.com

As a source of useful agronomic trait variation, plant genetic resources have the potential to he... more As a source of useful agronomic trait variation, plant genetic resources have the potential to help meet the continuously increasing demand for food crops. Plant improvement depends largely on a combination of 50-60000 trait loci of the plant genome. The challenge, ...

he main goal of the study was to determine optimal waveband centers and widths required to best e... more he main goal of the study was to determine optimal waveband centers and widths required to best estimate agricultural crop characteristics. The hyperspectral narrowband data was acquired over 395 to 1020 nanometers using a 1.43-nanometerwide, 430 bands, hand-held spectroradiometer. Broadband data were derived using a Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper image acquired to correspond with field spectroradiometer and ground-truth measurements. Spectral and biophysical data were obtained from 196 sample locations, including farms and rangelands. Six representative crops grown during the main cropping season were selected: barley, wheat, lentil, cumin, chickpea, and vetch. Biophysical variables consisted of leaf area index, wet biomass, dry biomass, plant height, plant nitrogen, and canopy cover. Narrowband and broadband vegetation indices were computed and their relationship with quantitative crop characteristics were established and compared. The simple narrowband two-band vegetation indices [TBVI) and the optimum multiple-band vegetation indices [OMBVI) models provided the best results. The narrowband TBW and OMBvI models are compared with six other categories of narrow and broadband indices. Compared to the best broadband TM indices, TBW explained up to 24 percent greater variability and OMBVI explained up to 27 percent greater variability in estimating different crop variables. A Predominant proportion of crop characteristics are best estimated using data from four narrowbands, in order of importance, centered around 675 nanometers [red absorption maxima), 905 nm (near-infrared reflection peak), 720 nm [mid portion of the red-edge), and 550 nm [green reflectance maxima). The study determined 12 spectral bands and their bandwidths [Table 5) that provide optimal agricultural crop characteristics in the visible and near-infrared portion of the spectrum.

Established in 1977, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA)... more Established in 1977, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) is one of 15 centers supported by the CGIAR. ICARDA's mission is to improve the welfare of poor people through research and training in dry areas of the developing world, by increasing the production, productivity and nutritional quality of food, while preserving and enhancing the natural resource base. ICARDA serves the entire developing world for the improvement of lentil, barley and faba bean; all dry-area developing countries for the improvement of onfarm water-use efficiency, rangeland and small-ruminant production; and the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region for the improvement of bread and durum wheats, chickpea, pasture and forage legumes, and farming systems. ICARDA's research provides global benefits of poverty alleviation through productivity improvements integrated with sustainable natural-resource management practices. ICARDA meets this challenge through research, training, and dissemination of information in partnership with the national, regional and international agricultural research and development systems. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is a strategic alliance of countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations supporting 15 international agricultural Centers that work with national agricultural research systems and civil society organizations including the private sector. The alliance mobilizes agricultural science to reduce poverty, foster human well being, promote agricultural growth and protect the environment. The CGIAR generates global public goods that are available to all. The World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) are cosponsors of the CGIAR. The World Bank provides the CGIAR with a System Office in Washington, DC. A Science Council, with its Secretariat at FAO in Rome, assists the System in the development of its research program.

− The identification of irrigated cropland is essential for crop monitoring, yield estimation and... more − The identification of irrigated cropland is essential for crop monitoring, yield estimation and water management assessment in drylands. The standard approach is to use supervised classification on multispectral bands, vegetation indices or the Principal Components or, more recently, the combination of optical images with radar data. More complex methods, such as time-series analysis, sub-pixel calculation method and decision-tree based supervised classification have been proposed to differentiate the irrigated areas and identify the irrigation system. As an alternative approach to identify irrigated land, this paper introduces a simple and easily implemented algorithm, based on the logical operation and thresholding of a combination of thermal temperature (T s) and vegetation indices (e.g. NDVI). This approach is illustrated through a case study in northern Syria using Landsat TM images. The results show a good consistence with the field observations

− The identification of irrigated cropland is essential for crop monitoring, yield estimation and... more − The identification of irrigated cropland is essential for crop monitoring, yield estimation and water management assessment in drylands. The standard approach is to use supervised classification on multispectral bands, vegetation indices or the Principal Components or, more recently, the combination of optical images with radar data. More complex methods, such as time-series analysis, sub-pixel calculation method and decision-tree based supervised classification have been proposed to differentiate the irrigated areas and identify the irrigation system. As an alternative approach to identify irrigated land, this paper introduces a simple and easily implemented algorithm, based on the logical operation and thresholding of a combination of thermal temperature (Ts) and vegetation indices (e.g. NDVI). This approach is illustrated through a case study in northern Syria using Landsat TM images. The results show a good consistence with the field observations (99%).

Sustainable Agriculture Research

This paper provides a brief overview of how traditional concepts and approaches of land use plann... more This paper provides a brief overview of how traditional concepts and approaches of land use planning have evolved into a more widely accepted vision of ‘land resources planning’ and its requirements for participatory processes, involvement of multi-sectoral stakeholders, and multi-thematic information at appropriate scales. Given its comprehensive ambitions, land resource planning (LRP) has a growing demand for a wide-ranging toolset, encompassing different tools in the biophysical, socio-economic, and governance (in a form of guidelines, methods, approaches and support tools). In order to collate knowledge, experiences and lessons from the LRP tools users, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) - Land and Water Division held a consultation process through a survey among a range of stakeholders operating at different levels, sectors and regions. The survey evidenced limited awareness about the current availability of tools for land use planning. To remedy ...

Weather and Climate Extremes

ABSTRACT In Syria’s northwestern Idleb region, agriculture is principally constrained by the abun... more ABSTRACT In Syria’s northwestern Idleb region, agriculture is principally constrained by the abundance of surface rock outcrops. A key development activity in this region is therefore to remove the rocks (‘de-rocking’), using heavy equipment, and to create new land suitable for agricultural use. A two-stage approach was followed to assist the Idleb Agricultural Development Authority in targeting those areas suitable for de-rocking. In a first stage a rapid appraisal was conducted to assess potential for de-rocking, using a newly developed land use/land cover map and limited field work, but did not include a systematic soil survey. The criteria used were existing agricultural use, forest cover, excessive rockiness or slopes, nearby presence of historical and cultural sites, quarries, and potential to serve as a conservation area. On the basis of these information sources and other secondary data, integrated in a GIS system, it was possible to disqualify 85% of the study area as having no potential for de-rocking. The strongest predictor of potential for de-rocking was the land use class ‘rangelands’ on nummulithic limestones. In a second stage, using a non-hierarchical clustering procedure, 30 watersheds out of the 250 in the potential areas were selected to conduct a limited soil survey, focusing on soil depth and rockiness observations. This field dataset of soil depth and rockiness was complemented with a high-resolution soil depth map, derived from the Quickbird imagery in Google Earth, and maps of slopes, lithological materials and Wetness Index. Using this set of ‘evidence layers’, Bayesian inference methods were applied, using Expector software, to produce pixel-based probabilistic maps of soil depth and rockiness for the entire project area. With user-defined thresholds the probability maps were converted into a suitability map and a map identifying 300 hectares of primary target areas and 3,900 hectares of secondary target areas for de-rocking.

Encyclopedia of Natural Resources: Land, 2014

World Soils Book Series, 2018

Encyclopedia of Soil Science, Third Edition, 2017

Monitoring and Predicting Agricultural Drought, 2005

atlas-conferences.com

− The identification of irrigated cropland is essential for crop monitoring, yield estimation and... more − The identification of irrigated cropland is essential for crop monitoring, yield estimation and water management assessment in drylands. The standard approach is to use supervised classification on multispectral bands, vegetation indices or the Principal Components or, more recently, the combination of optical images with radar data. More complex methods, such as time-series analysis, sub-pixel calculation method and decision-tree based supervised classification have been proposed to differentiate the irrigated areas and identify the irrigation system. As an alternative approach to identify irrigated land, this paper introduces a simple and easily implemented algorithm, based on the logical operation and thresholding of a combination of thermal temperature (Ts) and vegetation indices (e.g. NDVI). This approach is illustrated through a case study in northern Syria using Landsat TM images. The results show a good consistence with the field observations (99%).

Sustainable Agriculture Research

Weather and Climate Extremes