aWhere Inc aWhere Inc

http://www.awhere.com/en-us

aWhere is a private company that specializes in the use of geo-spatial tools. Awhere is working in partnership with CYMMIT, ILRI, IRRI, and IFPRI in generating daily, gridded (9-km resolution) weather databases by interpolating observed data collected from thousands of meteorological stations. Briefly, historic weather data are interpolated to within five miles of any location, a level much more precise than is otherwise available in rural areas. These data are currently available for U.S., Eastern and Southern Africa, and South Asia and accessible through a Web application or in map and chart form – or both – and can be easily integrated with other databases. The database includes historical weather data as well as current day and 10-day forecast. The included weather variables are precipitation, temperature, realtive humidity, solar radiation, and wind speed.

The Yield Gap Atlas project will require high-quality, daily observed weather data from regions where these data are usually not available or have poor quality, such as Africa and southern Asia. This provides an opportunity for collaboration between the Yield Gap Atlas project and aWhere, specifically, at developing reliable weather databases for the targeted regions, which can subsequently be used as inputs for simulating yield potential using crop simulation models. Collection of historical daily weather data, development of quality-control measures, and interpolation techniques are potential areas for mutual collaboration. The Yield Gap Atlas project can also play a quality control role in evaluating the degree to which aWhere climate data replicate the actual weather data to be used, where available, in the Atlas.  In fact, one of the Atlas PIs has already initiated a pilot study with aWhere to test use of their weather data for simulating Yp and Yw for maize.