GIS/RS @ILRI

An Notenbaert

African Agriculture GIS Week

8-16 June 2010
Nairobi, Kenya
 Attention! Attention!!!

1. Index-Based Livestock Insurance

2. Down-scaled climate projections

Different (spatial and temporal) scales

Different target audiences
Different position along research-development gradient
Attention! Attention!!!

1. Index-Based Livestock Insurance

2. Down-scaled climate projections

 IBLI

Protecting Pastoralists from the Risk of

Drought Related Livestock Mortality:
Piloting Index-Based Livestock Insurance
in Northern Kenya

http://www.ilri.org/ibli/
 Managing Risk in the ASALs

• ASAL residents, particularly in Northern Kenya, confront harsh

and volatile environments.

• High level of risk:

– Droughts, Diseases, Conflict

• Low levels of capacity:

– Infrastructure deficient
– Few alternative livelihood
opportunities

= A high degree of vulnerability to risk

 Impact of Drought on Livelihoods The Marsabit Pilot

• Livestock is both the principal asset Proportion of total income by source

2%
and source of income for the vast 4% 2%
6%
4%

majority of ASAL residents 6%

M
• Drought is the single greatest cause 14%
Milk
Livestock Sale
Li
14%
of livestock mortality 44%
44% Slaughter
Sl
Fo
Food aid
• Most drought related livestock Salary/ wage
Sa
C
mortality occurs under severe Cultivation
Trade Tr

conditions 15% 15% Gift G

4% 4%
10% 10%
Livestock mortality by cause
800

700 Other

600 Bad Water

Rai n
500
Ol d Age
400
Ki l l ed to protect mother
300 Acci dent / i njury
Predator
200
Disease
100
Pasture / drought / starvati on
0
June 2000 Sept. 2000 Dec. 2000 March June 2001 Sept. 2001 Dec. 2001 March June 2002
2001 2002
 Insurance and Agricultural Development

• Such risk imposes considerable economic and welfare costs

• Sustainable insurance can prevent this

• But can insurance be sustainably offered in the ASAL?

• Conventional (individual) insurance unlikely to work, especially
in small scale agro-pastoral sector:
– Transactions costs
– Moral hazard/adverse selection
 Index Based Insurance
• New innovation in insurance avoids problems that make traditional
insurance unprofitable for small, remote clients:
• Policy holders paid based on external “index” that triggers payments
to all insured clients
• Suited for risks affecting a large number of people simultaneously
and for which a suitable index exists.

– No transactions costs of measuring individual losses

– Preserves effort incentives (no moral hazard) as no single individual can
influence index.
– Adverse selection does not matter as payouts do not depend on the
riskiness of those who buy the insurance
– Problem of “basis” risk (imperfect correlation loss – index)
 The index
Need for a measure that is:

1. Highly correlated with livestock mortality

2. Reliably and cheaply available for wide range of locations
3. Historically available (pricing)

 NDVI ~ vegetation available for livestock to consume

 Predicted livestock mortality index

 Source Data
Deviation of NDVI from long-term average
NDVI Data NDVI February 2009, Dekad 3
February 2009, Dekad 3

 Real-time
available in 8×8
km2 resolution

 27 years
available since
late 1981

NASA NDVI Image Produced By: USGS-EROS Data Center. Source: Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS-NET)

Laisamis
Laisamis Cluster, zndvi Cluster
(1982-2008)
5
4
3 Karare
2 Logologo
1
0 Ngurunit
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
-1 Korr
-2
-3
Historical droughts
 Product Design

Cumulative differential NDVI

Derivation of livestock mortality index
 Product Design

Cumulative zNDVI & Temporal structure of IBLI contract

1 year contract coverage

LRLD season coverage SRSD season coverage

Short Rain Short Dry Long Rain Long Dry Short Rain Short Dry

Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb

Prior observation of NDVI since Period of continuing observation of NDVI

last rain for LRLD season for constructing LRLD mortality index

Sale period Salemortality

period is announced.
Predicted LRLD
For LRLD For SRSD
Indemnity payment is made if triggered

Period of NDVI observations

Prior observation of NDVI since last rain
for constructing SRSD
for SRSD season
mortality index

Sale period Predicted SRSD mortality is announced.

For SRSD Indemnity payment is made if triggered
Attention! Attention!!!

1. Index-Based Livestock Insurance

2. Down-scaled climate projections

 From global climate change models to local impacts

• Climate models (GCMs)  information on future global climate in

response to the forcing provided by greenhouse gas emissions. Very
coarse: 200-300 km grid cells

• GCMs cannot possibly reproduce the details of local weather (impacts

of smallish water bodies, variations in elevation, etc).

So:

• How to generate climate information at a scale that is useful for

decision-making by policy makers, researchers, etc?
•How to generate data useful to assess possible impacts on, for example,
crop and pasture production?
AOGCMs used in the downscaling work

Randall et al. (2007)

 Scheme of the down-scaling analysis

WorldClim
Weather typing CRU etc

MarkSim Observed climate

stochastic grid at resolution
weather of choice
generator

Generate daily data

characteristic of a
chosen “year” (time-
slice) from 2000-2099

Applications

Jones, Thornton, Heinke (2009). Generating characteristic daily weather data using downscaled climate model data from IPCC’s Fourth Assessment
 Applications

Daily data that are characteristic (to some extent) of the

climatology of future time slices:
• Rainfall
• Maximum temp
• Minimum temp

With these, can derive or estimate other variables:

• Daily: Solar radiation (a function of Tmax, Tmin, lat, long)

• Seasonal: Length of growing period, season start date,

duration, ending date (simple water balance, soil data)

Drive vegetation, crop, livestock models …

http://futureclim.info/
 ILRI’s offering

• Livestock expertise
• Targeting
• Forward looking perspective
 Livestock Expertise

• Hardly any agriculture without livestock

• ILRI is truly & explicitly integrating:

– Livestock
– Crops
– Poor people
– NRM

Examples: our work on feeds

collaboration with IWMI (WUE, etc)
 Targeting and Systems Classification Framework
Characteristics:
• Simple and map-able
• Differentiating: production systems, main agro-ecologies, key commodities, livelihood
strategies
• Distinguishing vulnerable and poor populations
• Easy to relate to in relation to different centres/MPs activities

Process:
• Step 1: mapping
• Step 2: identification development challenges and researchable issues

Aim:
• Articulate development challenges/system/MP
• Target activities and interventions in MPs
• Priority regions
• Differentiate MP1.1 and MP1.2
 Forward looking perspective

• Experience from past & current projects, lots of

up-coming projects
– Avian influenza - transport model, risk assessment
– Global futures – comprehensive modeling
environment
– CC – Vulnerability, GHG inventories, adaptation, …
– Healthy futures – decision support for water-borne
diseases
– Animal change
– …
 ILRI’s offering

• Livestock as an integral part of agricultural

production systems
• Targeting
• Forward looking perspective
 Future beauties
• More collaboration
• Wider application field
• More and more users
• Bigger datasets
• …
 sharing of data, tools, methodologies
 more computing power
 skill/capacity building

 Towards a BECA-like GeoScience Hub?

 Example services

• CGIAR and beyond

• Targeting and priority setting

• Earth Observation/GIS support to MPs
• EO for Impact Assessment
• Capacity Building
• Knowledge Management