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Raihan, M. J.; Farzana, F. D.; Sultana, S.; Saha, K. K.; Haque, M. A.; Rahman, A. S.; Mahmud, Z.; Black, R. E.; Choudhury, N.; Ahmed, T.
Abstract Agriculture is the mainstay of livelihoods of the rural Bangladeshi population with the majority involved in the staple rice production which is subjected to seasonal variation
. Rice production is invariably related to food insecurity which translates to the food shortage or lean periods. In order to have a comprehensive view on food insecurity in Bangladesh, it is necessary to assess the seasonality of food insecurity status and the factors associated with it. The objective of this paper is to compare the effect of two major rice harvest seasons and the post-aus rice harvest period on household food insecurity along with the contribution of relevant household characteristics. Data was collected during Bangladeshi aman harvest (November–January) and boro harvest (April–June) seasons and post-aus harvest (September–October) period. Information of 47,239 households from February 2011 to November 2013 was subjected to bivariate and multivariate analyses and statistical significance was declared when p < 0.05. Around 27%, 47%, and 26% of households were food insecure during aman harvest, boro harvest, and post-aus harvest period respectively. The aman harvest [adjusted OR (aOR): 0.54 [95% CI: 0.40–0.74; p < 0.001] and post-aus [aOR: 0.59 [95% CI: 0.44–0.80; p < 0.001] period had a lower odds of being food insecure when compared to boro harvest season except for the northern Rangpur region. Contrary to expectation, the prevalence of household food insecurity in the defined seasons is less during post-aus harvest period (the perceived lean period) and aman harvest season in comparison to the boro harvest season when food and work is more readily available in rural Bangladesh. There are several statistically significant household characteristics, namely household head being a farmer, educational status of household head, and household monthly income to have higher impact on food insecurity
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Hossain, F.; Maswood, M.; Siddique-E-Akbor, A. H.; Yigzaw, W.; Mazumdar, L. C.; Ahmed, T.; Hossain, M.; Shah-Newaz, S. M.; Limaye, A.; Lee, H.; Pradhan, S.; Shrestha, B.; Bajracahrya, B.; Biancamaria, S.; Shum, C. K.; Turk, F. J.
Building on a recent suite of work that has demonstrated theoretical feasibility and operational readiness of a satellite altimeter based flood forecasting system, we recently put a progressively designed altimeter based transboundary flood forecasting system to the ultimate test of real-time operational delivery in Bangladesh
. The JASON-2 satellite altimeter, which was in orbit at the time of writing this manuscript, was used as the flagship altimeter mission. This paper summarizes the entire process of designing the system, customizing the workflow, and putting the system in place for complete ownership by the Bangladesh stakeholder agency for a 100 day operational skill test spanning the period of June 1 2013 through Sept. 9, 2013. Correlation for most of the flood warning stations ranged between 0.95 to 0.80 during the 1 day to 8 days lead time range. The RMSE of forecast typically ranged between 0.75m to 1.5m at locations where the danger level relative to the river bed was more than an order higher (i.e., >20m). The RMSE of forecast at the 8 days lead time did not exceed 2m for upstream and mid-stream rivers inside Bangladesh. The RMSE of forecast at the 8 days lead time exceeded 2m at a few estuarine river locations affected by tidal effects, where danger level relative to river bed was smaller (i.e., <20m). Such a satellite altimeter system, such as one based on the JASON-2 altimeter, is now poised to serve the entire inhabitants of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basins as well as 30 or more flood-prone downstream nations currently deprived of real-time flow data from upstream nations
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Hossain, F.; Siddique-E-Akbor, A. H. M.; Yigzaw, W.; Shah-Newaz, S.; Hossain, M.; Mazumder, L. C.; Ahmed, T.; Shum, C. K.; Lee, H.; Biancamaria, S.; Turk, F. J.; Limaye, A.
More than a decade ago, a National Research Council (NRC) report popularized the term “Valley of Death” to describe the region where research on weather satellites had struggled to reach maturity for societal applications
. A similar analogy can be drawn for other satellite missions, since their vantage point in space can be highly useful for some of the world's otherwise fundamentally intractable operational problems. One such intractable problem is flood forecasting for downstream nations where the flooding is transboundary. Bangladesh fits in this category by virtue of its small size and location at the sink of the mighty Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. There has been the claim made that satellites can be a solution for Bangladesh in achieving forecasts with lead times beyond 3 days. This claim has been backed up by scientific research done by numerous researchers, who have shown proof of concept of using satellite data for extending flood forecasting range. This article aims to take the reader on a journey that had its humble beginnings with this promising research and ended with making the dream of an operational system that is independently owned by the stakeholders a reality. The idea behind this article is to shed light on some of the commonly experienced but less-familiar (in the academic community) roadblocks to making an operational system based on recent research survive in developing nations without long-term incubation
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Crop residue burning by farmers causes serious environmental pollution in many parts of the world, including Pakistan and India
. In order to help find a solution to this challenge, this policy brief assesses farmer residue management practices in two districts in the rice-wheat cropping area of Punjab, Pakistan
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Abstract: Burning agriculture residues has multiple negative effects including local air pollution, increase in black carbon and contributions to regional and global climate change
. This study seeks to understand why farmers burn rice residue by analyzing the residue adoption choices of farmers in the rice-wheat cropping system of Punjab, Pakistan. Rice residue has to be burned, removed or incorporated into the soil in order to prepare fields for the next wheat crop. The most favored residue management practice in Punjab, in terms of total rice area, is complete burning of rice residue, followed by removal of rice residue. When farmers remove residue, it is pre-dominantly because they use it to feed animals. Each practice has different cost implications. Complete residue removal costs PKR 4586 (US$ 55) per acre, on average. Further, complete residue removal is, on average, 34% costlier to farmers than full burning of residue. Thus farmers would need to be subsidized to avoid residue burning practices. A number of socio-economic factors influence farmers' residue management decisions. For example, the proportion of rice area allocated to full residue removal practice increases if the farm is owner operated or if the farmer has a larger number of livestock. On the other hand, the proportion of area that is fully burned increases with farm size, reduction in turn-around time between the harvesting of rice and the sowing of wheat, and the ease with which farm machinery can be used for preparing the wheat field.The study concludes that without some technological innovations to make rice residue removal and wheat field preparation less costly, it likely that this trend in residue burning will continue
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