Global Information and Early Warning System on Food and Agriculture (GIEWS)

Organizational

General Information:

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Year of publication: 2012

Available languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish

Details of Assessment:

Type of assessment: Comprehensive impact and risk assessment

Details: Assessment of agricultural stress, drought intensity, and vegetation health

Format of assessment: Web tool

Estimated costs for conducting: Open source

Estimated duration of assessment: No information

To be carried out by whom: Consultants (climate experts)

Institutional scale of use: Multiple (see details)

Details: Global, continental, national

Assesment to be used by which target audience: Multiple actors

Details: Decision makers at all levels

Output: Others (see details)

Details: Report and maps indicating agricultural stress

Methodological

Coverage & Methodology:

Region of origin: Europe

Developed by which sector: Development cooperation

Applied in practice: Yes

Geographic coverage in analysis: Worldwide

Potential geographic coverage: Worldwide

Sectors covered: Agriculture

Method used: Index development

Description of methodology: The indices are based on remote sensing data of vegetation and land surface temperature combined with information on agricultural cropping cycles derived from historical data and a global crop mask

Risk framework used: No explicit use of risk framework

Risk components incorporated: Exposure

Hazards and impacts considered in the assessment: Drought

Details: Drought

Source of required data: Secondary (available data is used)

Details: Satellite based data on vegetation and precipitation data

Temporal scale: Current

Participatory elements: No

Consideration of interconnectedness and -dependencies of risks: No

Adressing uncertainty: No information

Scope of assessment: Identification of risks

Details: Identification of stress to agriculture

Relevance for losses and damages:

Economic/Non-Economic losses incorporated: Both

Applicability for entire risk spectrum (from extreme weather events to slow onset processes): No information

Applicability

Recommendations for Adaptation measures included in Climate Risk Assessment: No

Usefulness for political purposes: Could be used for the development of a remote sensing-based index for crop insurance

Applied by whom: FAO

Open access: Yes