International Advanced GIS Training on Crop Area Modelling
The Department of Agricultural Land Management (DALAM) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) is hosting an international advanced GIS training which will allow for the monitoring of the evolution of the cropland systems in the country.
A collaboration between the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and the FAO project “Strengthening Agro-climatic Monitoring and Information Systems (SAMIS) to improve adaptation to climate change and food security in Lao PDR” financed by GEF are supporting this training. The training will be opened by the Director General of DALAM Mr. Khamphone Rasachack, Director General of Department of Agricultural Land Management, and by Mr. Nasar Hayat, FAO Representative to Lao PDR.
The training is very relevant to the monitoring of the evolution of the cropping patterns at local level through remotely sensed data. Over the last year, DALAM has been working in the development of cropland map and land suitability map of Lao pdr in each year. The present training will enable DALAM experts to map crop Area and crop intensity using both with optical and microwave satellite data, as well as modelling crop production with time series.
More in general, the DALAM is organizing this traing that will be pivotal to the development of the Land Resources Management Information System (LRIMS) a web enabled geo-spatial database system aimed at storing all most relevant nationally produced climate change, agricultural and natural resources data in order define agricultural scenarios for the future. This tool will support policy options designing and land management planning in a climate change scenario.