Current climate change impact studies on coffee have not considered impact on coffee typicities that depend on local microclimatic, topographic and soil characteristics. Thus, this study aims to provide a quantitative risk assessment of the impact of climate change on suitability of five premium specialty coffees in Ethiopia. We implement an ensemble model of three machine learning algorithms to predict current and future (2030s, 2050s, 2070s, and 2090s) suitability for each specialty coffee under four Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs). Results show that the importance of variables determining coffee suitability in the combined model is different from those for specialty coffees despite the climatic factors remaining more important in determining suitability than topographic and soil variables. Our model predicts that 27% of the country is generally suitable for coffee, and of this area, only up to 30% is suitable for specialty coffees. The impact modelling showed that the combined model projects a net gain in coffee production suitability under climate change in general but losses in five out of the six modelled specialty coffee growing areas. We conclude that depending on drivers of suitability and projected impacts, climate change will significantly affect the Ethiopian speciality coffee sector and area-specific adaptation measures are required to build resilience.
<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Weeds are one of the major restrictions to sustaining crop productivity. Weeds often outcompete crops for nutrients, soil moisture, solar radiation, space and provide platforms for breeding of pests and diseases. The ever-growing global food insecurity triggers the need for spatially explicit innovative geospatial technologies that can deliver timely detection of weeds within agro-ecological systems. This will help pinpoint maize fields to be prioritized for weed control. Satellite remote sensing offers incomparable opportunities for precision agriculture, ecological applications and vegetation characterisation, with vast socioeconomic benefits. This work compares and evaluates the strength of Sentinel-2 (S2) satellite with the constellation of Dove nanosatellites i.e. PlanetScope (PS) data in detecting and mapping Striga (<i>Striga hermonthica</i>) weed within intercropped maize fields in Rongo sub-county in western Kenya. We applied the S2 and PS derived spectral data and vegetation indices in mapping the Striga occurrence. Data analysis was implemented, using the Guided Regularised Random Forest (GRRF) classifier. Comparatively, Sentinel-2 demonstrated slightly lower Striga detection capacity than PlanetScope, with an overall accuracy of 88% and 92%, respectively. The results further showed that the VNIR (Blue, Green Red and NIR) and the Atmospheric resistance Vegetation Index (ARVI) were the most fundamental variables in detecting and mapping Striga presence in maize fields. Findings from this work demonstrate that Sentinel-2 data has the capability to provide spatial explicit near real-time field level Striga detection &ndash; a previously daunting task with broadband multispectral sensors.</p>
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