User requirements for sustainable South African Water Management
What are the information needs and requirements of operational water managers in South Africa? Which new services and applications can help them with their biggest challenge: water scarcity? During the first half of 2019, colleagues from HydroLogic have traveledmultiple times to South Africa to acquire information and investigate the needs and challenges of the South […]
Transforming Agricultural Insurance in Africa Using Climate Data.
@iLabAfrica, a research and innovation center at Strathmore University held a breakfast forum on May 2nd,2019 themed: Transforming Agricultural Insurance in Africa using Climate Data at the Strathmore Business School. The forum was a platform to discuss and provide insights on effective implementation of products that are key in reducing farmers’ vulnerability to weather extremes. […]
Narok County of Kenya set to be a global role model in improved real-time weather observations and climate information dissemination and use (Part Two)
From the stakeholders’ workshop, the TWIGA team was involved in improving their capacity to implement the project. On this, the second and third day of the workshop was focused on training of the TWIGA team on Business Model Canvas (BMC) development. The business model was based on the outcome of the stakeholder’s workshop on the […]
Ghana’s agriculture sector: challenges and opportunities
Agriculture is a crucial component of Ghana’s economy which contributes around 20% to its Gross Domestic Product, provides employment for almost half its workforce, and supplies two-thirds of the raw materials used in its manufacturing sector (excluding oil). Cocoa, the country’s major cash crop and principle agricultural export, accounts for between 20-25% of Ghana’s total […]
Narok County of Kenya set to be a global role model in improved real-time weather observations and climate information dissemination and use (Part One).
The TWIGA project in Kenya is championed by the Kenya Meteorological Department comprising a multidisciplinary team of 5 members with the recent addition of a new member who will be pursuing a Ph.D. course within the project. The TWIGA project has started in Narok County in Kenya, located about 145 km from Nairobi, the capital […]
Added-value of Flying Sensors: irrigation advice to pineapple farmers
In November 2018, just after the TWIGA days in Kumasi, Ghana, FutureWater, together with partners Hiview and Farmerline, conducted a pilot study using flying sensors (drones) to enhance irrigation water productivity and yields of pineapple farmers. Pineapple is a key economic resource in Ghana, but pineapple yields generally remain low. Yield losses occur due to […]
TWIGA experiments for tuning numerical weather prediction models
Within TWIGA, in situ GNSS time series and satellite SAR maps of atmospheric water vapor contents will be used to enhance the predictability of convective storms. This will be achieved by assimilating these products into Numerical Weather Prediction Models (NWP). The Weather and Research Forecasting (WRF) model has been selected to perform the assimilation experiments. […]
From large to small or from small to large?
Lessons from the use of mobile apps and geodata apps for smallholder farmers Satellite and geodata applications for smallholder agriculture are quite new, more general apps for smallholders that make use of mobile technology are around a bit longer. A number of these mobile initiatives have been evaluated (have a look at www.gsma.com) and it […]
The TWIGA information service infrastructure
HydroNET as the gateway to water, weather and climate data for Africa One of TWIGA’s key objectives is to deliver more than 20 geo-services for Africa by the end of the project. These information services will primarily be based on existing data sets from TWIGA partners and data collected within the project. The TWIGA data […]
