Month: October 2019

September 2019 Brownbag

The first brownbag for the fall 2019 semester was held in March 7, 2019. There were a lot of updates from all corners, and the meeting took place for about an hour and a half. For the context of the project, it was an extremely busy schedule for the engineering modelling team, as they had to finish all model simulations to get the seasonal forecast ready in time.

The meeting first heard from the undergraduate participants, on their invaluable experiences from the Ethiopia summer field visit. For all the undergraduate students, it was their first visit to a new continent! It was decided that they will submit a reflection report based on their visit. Also, interested undergraduate students would be provided with the opportunity to continue research within the NSF PIRE project.

There were discussions on the individual research updates. Genevieve Rigler, an undergraduate student from UConn recently attended a conference in the University of Oklahoma and presented a poster on the PIRE Citizen Science project. Xinyu Lin, another undergraduate student who is committed to doing her thesis with the PIRE project will also continue her research for the next two semesters.

The graduate student team discussed in very detail about the development of the dry season Forecast Bulletin. The social science team from Ethiopia remotely connected for the meeting and provided valuable updates on the feedback they received from the initial forecast dissemination. A few updates to the existing draft bulletin was discussed and accepted. The engineering team talked about their model findings in very brief. Overall it was decided that in the next Brownbag they will continue discussions on inter-disciplinary research, agent based modelling techniques, and on ideas of how to improve the forecast bulletins from now on.

March 2019 Brownbag

The second brownbag for the spring semester was held in March 7, 2019. Like the previous summer brownbag, this one also experienced less participation. Almost all the social science graduate students were away in Ethiopia for their data collection. 

In this Brownbag, the participation of the undergraduate students was highlighted. As the NSF PIRE project gave the opportunity to a total number of 9 undergraduate students to perform pilot research projects within the scope of the PIRE Water and Food Security Project, they took the time to discuss about their specific plans. The engineering graduate students who were present in the Brownbag discussed with the undergraduates on the feasibility aspects of their research plans. 

The graduate students also discussed about their specific plans for the field visits, with emphasis on the summer school activities and model results. In short, the specific actions performed in the Brownbag was,

  • Discussing with UConn undergraduate students regarding their research plans.
  • Sharing research ideas and providing a brief understanding on the project goals.
  • Discussing engineering model results, social survey feedbacks from field, etc.
  • Detailed plan on Summer 2019 field visits and expectations.
  • Demonstration of the summer school activities to be held in the Summer of 2019

February 2019 Brownbag

The first brownbag for the spring semester was held in February 21, 2019. The meeting experienced less participation than usual, since most of the social science researchers were already away in Ethiopia for their data collection. One of the changes in the Brownbag was the inclusion of a broad number of undergraduate students. For the spring 2019 semester, the participation of the undergraduate students was emphasized. The NSF PIRE project gave the opportunity to a total number of 9 undergraduate students to perform pilot research projects within the scope of the PIRE Water and Food Security Project. The Spring semester Brownbag was structured in a way that it helps the undergraduates with their research plan, field visit preparation, etc. The Brownbag is an excellent platform where students from all disciplines and all tiers get the opportunity to interact, talk with themselves and hence allow a greater exchange of knowledge and information.
The specific actions performed in the Brownbag was,

  • Introducing the UConn undergraduate students and hearing out from them on their
    research proposals.
  • Sharing research ideas and providing a brief understanding on the project goals.
  • Brief plan on summer 2019 field visits and expectations.

Sensor Development Team Highlighted in UConn Today

In the PIRE project, a Citizen Science Initiative (PIRE CSI) is in place that helps collecting soil moisture information which are collected by farmers and high school students, and later on used in the advanced hydrological models (CREST and MODFLOW). From the summer of 2018, we have installed a few state-of-the-art soil moisture sensors that help collect more distributed information, in addition to our already existing TDR measurements. The new sensors developed by the team of UConn engineers, led by Dr. Baikun Li and Dr. Guiling Wang, is environment friendly and very inexpensive. These could save nearly 35% of water consumption and cost far less than what exists. Current sensors that are used in a similar way range from $100 to $1,000 each, while the one developed at UConn cost $2, according to the researchers. 

A farmer, guided by the group of Bahir Dar University and UConn students working to install the new soil moisture sensor at a field site in Dangishta

Dr. Li, Dr. Wang, and the UConn sensor development team was featured recently in UConn Today. Dr. Wang, a soil moisture hydrologist, says “On the science side, the new sensor will help address the scarcity of in-situ soil moisture data that has been a major challenge for the advancing of hydrological science; on the humanity side, there is great potential for this low-cost new technology to be used in the developing world to help improve agricultural productivity”. 

These sensors were installed with the help of Ethiopian partners during the summer of 2018 alongside a team of UConn graduate students. Originally the sensors measure soil electrical resistivity, which provides an understanding of the amount of water contents available in the soil to allow exchange of ions. Later on, the resistivity data is converted into soil moisture variable through calibration with TDR records. Since the summer of 2018, approximately 150s of these sensors have been installed in different locations of the four field sites in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. In each location, two sensors are placed at 20-cm and 40-cm depths. The farmers have been trained to use these sensors and so far, the data collection and monitoring has been a great experience!

For the full UConn Today article, click here