wireless: interactions with agriculture and environment in developing and emerging regions
DESCRIPTION
Presentation aims at exploring relationship between agriculture & environment and ICT & Wireless. Furthermore, the presentation explores how ICT and particularly wireless tools and technologies can be employed to tackle the food, water & energy nexus in light of climate change.TRANSCRIPT
Wireless: interactions with agriculture & environment in developing and emerging regions
Simone SalaResearcher at Columbia University CICR, MIT-IBM NSRC, University of Milan DISAA
Practitioner in between the above
March 21, 2013International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) – Trieste, Italy
School on Applications of Open Spectrum and White Spaces Technologies
Index
1. Why should we care about Agriculture and Environment as Wireless people?
2. How can we tackle the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus?
Why should we care about Agriculture/Environment as ICT people??Driving forces & Technology right in the middle
MarketDemocracy
Sustainability
Local Global
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Technology
Why should we care about Agriculture/Environment as ICT people??Driving forces & Technology right in the middle
MarketDemocracy
Sustainability
Local Global
Shor
t-te
rmLo
ng-t
erm
Technology
Why should we care about Agriculture/Environment as ICT people??Driving forces & Technology right in the middle
MarketDemocracy
Sustainability
Local Global
Shor
t-te
rmLo
ng-t
erm
Technology
Everyone
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Why should we care about Agriculture/Environment as ICT people??Driving forces & Technology right in the middle
MarketDemocracy
Sustainability
Local Global
Shor
t-te
rmLo
ng-t
erm
Technology
Why should we care about Agriculture/Environment as ICT people??
(1) Telecoms – Energy nexus
Why should we care about Agriculture/Environment as ICT people??
(1) Telecoms – Energy nexus
• Higher mobile telecom costs in developing & emerging regions…
Partly due to > costs of power supply to support continuity of service
Why should we care about Agriculture/Environment as ICT people?? (2) Energy – Climate nexus
• Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions primary cause of global warming
• Most of emissions comes from burning fossil fuels – Agriculture as a top contributor too
Why should we care about Agriculture/Environment as ICT people??(3) Climate – Telecoms nexus
• Precipitation (especially heavy rainfall) affect satelite telecommunications– Rain fade signal absorption by air moisture and by
wetness on antenna surfaces
• Extreme events affect mobile telecommunications infrastructures
Why should we care about Agriculture/Environment as ICT people??(4) The whole WEF + climate nexus
WaterClimate
EnergyFood
• Increasing water, food & energy demand: +30/50% between 2010-2013 (World Economic Forum, 2011)
How can we tackle the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus?TVWS & Energy/Climate
TVWS makes a difference in terms of: • Power consumption: low input & output power
– Works at low frequencies compared to other wireless networks
– Emerging TVWS protocols tend to minimize protocol overhead (hence > energy efficiency!)
• Weather susceptibility – TVWS is not affected by moisture in the air and by
wetness on antenna surfaces
How can we tackle the WEF nexus?Finding Wireless’ place
Record dataand information
Transform data and information into knowledge
Broadcast & Communicate
Information and Knowledge
Observation Analysis & Strategic Planning
Implementation &
Management
Capacity Building & Networking
Wireless can help
How can we tackle the WEF nexus?Wireless & climate change
Wireless can be a catalyzer for:
• Awareness raising on global/local climate issues– Dissemination of climate change awareness messages via low/high tech
• Monitoring of climate parameters and natural resources– Smartphone, sensors, remote sensing integration as a two-way channel for
monitoring
• Climate change Mitigation– Track impact of carbon sequestration initiatives
• Adaptation to climate change– Dissemination of short-term information, knowledge sharing
How can we tackle the WEF nexus?Wireless & improved water distribution systems
• IXEM Lab’s Water Mole– Goal: recognize pipe damages or fluid leakages– Strategy: A wireless sensor measures liquid pressure
over time/frequency through a distribution network
http://www.ixem.polito.it/
How can we tackle the WEF nexus?Wireless & improved agri-food systems
• Many applications!
Greenhouse control
Animal feed control
Precision Farming
Weather
Agro-ecological Monitoring
Wireless
Traceability
Food packaging
Animal/crop identification
Transportation
How can we tackle the WEF nexus?Wireless & improved agri-food systems
• Pest monitoring & traceability system in Jamaica (Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute, CARDI)
• Problem: fall of hot pepper exports to US because of pests (20M$/year, 50'000 workers)
• Solution: GPS-powered map ofproducers, provision of inspectors w/ portable devices to monitor production and track pest outbreaks http://goo.gl/t2L5OF
Thank you!
Simone Sala
• Web: www.simonesala.it
• Twitter: @hereissimone
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, revisited