July 19, 2007
NASA RESEARCHERS FIND SATELLITE DATA CAN WARN OF FAMINE
A NASA researcher has developed a new method to anticipate
food shortages
brought on by drought. Molly Brown of NASA’s Goddard Space
Flight Center in
Brown conceived the idea while working with organizations in
Supply and demand largely dictate food prices, with greater
supply leading
to lower prices and less supply leading to higher prices. During a food
crisis
in semi-arid regions like
Brown, the lead author of a study to be published early next
year in the
Agricultural economists often use a mathematical formula and
typically data
on crop yield, a range of market prices, and other variables to develop
a price
model that estimates what food prices may be in the marketplace. Brown
applied
remote-sensing data in an economic model producing an enhanced way for
aid
officials to combat a problem that affects 3.6 million people in
To use their price model in a real-world situation, Brown and
her colleagues
compared variations in crop production to variations in food prices in
parts of
Brown used long-term data from sensors on NASA-built satellites to gauge the density of local plant life, an indicator of the strength of the crop. From space, sensors pick up reflections from the ground to determine the ground’s “greenness” and enable researchers to estimate the amount of rainfall. Those data in turn may be used to estimate the amount of grain that crops will produce. Brown combined the satellite data and climate variables with the price model to create maps of millet prices covering a complete area. With these maps decision makers can predict price changes, food availability and ultimately food insecurity.
Food prices are not determined solely by human action. Climate variables affect about 20 percent of the process of market pricing, according to the study's co-author Jorge Pinzon, a research scientist and mathematician at Goddard. This is a factor that decision makers often do not take into account when analyzing food security, Pinzon said.
"It is critical to include climate and environmental variables in food security planning when piecing together all of the forces that come together to create famine," said Pinzon. "This model can help officials better understand the role that climate plays in food availability and pricing, and also in famine warning when applied to a real-time planning effort."
Brown believes that information provided by this new technique
can aid
organizations that are part of the U.S. Agency for International
Development's
(USAID) Famine Early Warning System to stem suffering that occurs every
year
from food crises. Brown hopes that her method, funded by NASA and
USAID, may
eventually help the farmers in
"This price model can be used in any region of the world where there are seasonal climate factors that can contribute to local food production crises," said Brown. "Even a country with normally adequate food production can still experience a food crisis if a drought hits. We hope that decision makers will work together with scientists to apply this model so that even a farmer on a small plot of land can better sustain his family during a drought."
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Contact:
Rob
Gutro
301-286-4044
rgutro@pop900.gsfc.nasa.gov
This
text is derived from:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/famine_data.html