Two weeks with an Ékpè Chief

Author: Seann Regan

Occasionally an opportunity presents itself, a brief phone call, a chat, a shared academic interest, and a proposal.

Occasionally you find yourself being led around North West Cameroon by an Ékpè Chief navigating forests and near impassible roads, eating exotic and questionable foods, crossing paths with corrupt army officials, and trying desperately to decode Cameroonian pidgin.

Occasionally you meet a Ju-ju.

Air France Flight 0958 hits the tarmac in Douala. Wait do they speak English here? Shoot no Wi-Fi. Hmm Google translate is out. A welcome sign reads “Don’t worry too much, you are in Cameroon.” Well on the plus side it’s in English, but really wish it didn’t require the “too”…

Perhaps some background is in order.

Image: Eating questionable foods, with an Ékpè elder.

A few weeks prior to landing at Douala International I was invited to participate in an ongoing collaborative research project with colleagues from the University of Southampton including Dr. Nicola Wardrop and Professor Pete Atkinson and colleagues from Cambridge, Imperial College London, and Brighton Medical School. I enthusiastically jumped at the opportunity to get into the field and assist in the project. The chief aim was to validate a combined geo-epidemiological approach for the mapping of Podoconiosis (Podo). While the exact cause of Podo has not yet been fully elucidated what is known is that it is a disfiguring and stigmatizing disease. Podo is likely an abnormal inflammatory reaction to irritant soils which leads to elephantiasis or lymphedema of the lower limbs. There appears to be a genetic predisposition, a lifestyle or behavioral element, and a strong environmental element as it only occurs in areas where irritant soils are prevalent and is most common among those who are either too poor to afford proper shoes, or for cultural reasons work barefoot. In addition to the disfigurement caused Podo also carries a huge economic burden as people afflicted become unable to work. It is one of the so called Neglected Tropical Diseases and thus almost by definition is a disease influencing those in poverty and living with little access to healthcare.

Initially we were planning to gather data on individual mobility patterns as the team felt strongly that the location where individuals farmed and how much time spent in different environments was of importance to the onset of Podo. Much of the existing data is at the level of the village, and we felt it would be beneficial to better quantify where people are farming and spending their time from day to day. As can often happen with field work this aim proved unrealistic in the short timeframe and so we focused our efforts on the broader project goals of visiting rural health care clinics, validating previous clinical diagnosis, and mapping and sampling irritant soils across the study area.

Image: African Traffic Jam

The first week in the field was busy but we were successfully able to set up protocols, meet with local collaborators, and make good progress in validating case diagnosis as well as begin mapping and collecting soil samples across region. One of the great things about the discipline of Geography in my opinion is the collaborations that are often established across disciplines, on this project we had MDs, MPHs, Geologists, Epidemiologists, and Geographers all working together. Data from the rural health clinics on diagnosis, patient history, and future genetic information will be linked with remotely sensed environmental data and geo-chemical analysis of soil data in a GIS for later statistical analysis.

The second week saw the departure of about half the team, and the “skeleton” crew consisting of myself, and a Geologist Jenn le Blond from Imperial, along with colleagues in Cameroon were to stay on in the field for another week continuing the soil sampling and ensuring that the protocol went smoothly. Up until this point the trip had been busy and hectic but despite some last minute protocol changes relatively worry free. After a few days spent in the field in the area around Bamenda taking soil samples and observing quarries for unique geology, we decided to head out with the epidemiology team to the surrounding villages for a visit with two of the more remote health clinics. This is when we met the Ju-ju.

The car picked us up around 7:30am and we headed north towards Kumbo then veered off onto the characteristically rough rural dirt roads that are so typical in the region, then things started to get interesting.

On our early morning departure from the hotel we didn’t know exactly where the villages and clinics were, no problem just ask directions right? Well this proved quite difficult when English and French are translated into the common Pidgin, a language that seems to have no concept of time, or distance, or direction for that matter. We pulled up next to several rural villagers asking for directions and constantly we were told, “go down” for how long? “some time”. When we asked how far in kilometers. The gentlemen just laughed and said “go until you reach”.  My personal favorite was when we came to a T and reversed back up the road to ask a farmer which way should we turn, he just said “yes”, “keep going”…hmm.

Image: “Rural” Road

We eventually took a chance and turned right and were making headway when we came to an odd looking bamboo stick protruding from the middle of the road with a symbol on top looking something like a blend between the letter Q and an infinity symbol. The driver slammed on the brakes and the truck came to a stop a few meters from the stick almost knocking it down. A villager came running up to the car and conversed with one of our Cameroonian partners in very quick Pidgin. All I got at this point was that there was to be some blindfolding involved…now keep in mind Cameroon is a relatively safe country but at this point I am pretty sure no one in the car knows where we are. Ok we are in Cameroon check, the Northwestern part check, but other than that no clue. Needless to say blindfolds didn’t seem like the best idea. I was on the verge of voicing my opinion to the group when we were informed not to worry, just the women needed to be blindfolded. Oh ok no worries at all. Right then. Jenn. Blindfold on.

As we drove slowly through the village I was still in too much shock to snap a picture, but I did get a glance of a man dancing in the entrance to a house wearing a large feathered mask, knee decorations, and a grass skirt. We passed through the other side of the village and past another ceremonial stick, and then removed Jenn’s blindfold. We came upon the clinic in after another 15 minutes or so, and began to unload the truck. In the end it was actually a pretty straightforward process, apparently the Ju-ju was blessing the construction of a new house, but what did give me pause was how seriously everyone took the power of the Juju man. I guess better safe than sorry?

All in all we got some good work done while in the field and will await the soil data as it begins to trickle in from Cameroon. But what I took away from this trip was more than what can be easily quantified in tables and graphs. One of the great things about having the opportunity to travel and work in some of the still remote regions of the world where outside influence is felt but traditional cultures remain is that it allows us to reflect on our own experience and lives and to put them into context and place.

While I was unable to get a picture I did purchase a Ju-ju doll at the craft market in Bamenda and while I am the first to admit that the frenzied situation may have altered my perception the resemblance now seems uncanny.

Perhaps the Ju-ju man cast a spell and masked my vision.

Image: Ju-ju Doll

20th International Congress of Biometeorology

The ICB is organized and sponsored by the International Society of Biometeorology (ISB). Since 1956, the ISB has provided an international forum for the promotion of interdisciplinary collaboration between meteorologists, health professionals, biologists, climatologists, ecologists and other scientists. For over 60 years, the ISB has served as a professional group of colleagues and researchers. A Congress is held every three years, which gathers biometeorologists from across the globe. This meeting is no exception with over 260 presentations or posters that collectively include authors from 42 countries. The theme for this Congress is “Adaptation to Climate Risks,”. True to the diversity of biometeorological studies, there is a large variety of topics across the individual sessions, including human biometeorology, animal biometeorology, phenology, agriculture and forestry, the built environment, tourism, thermal comfort, aerobiology, extreme events and disasters, and infectious diseases. The societal challenges presented through these studies are addressed through other fields, including risk communication, climate change, adaptation, and challenges particular to the developing world.

This year the conference was held in Cleveland, Ohio, on the 28th September to 1st October.  Victor F. Rodriguez-Galiano and Sarchil Qader presented their research at the conference. Both abstracts for the presentations are below. Victors titled: European vegetation response to climate drivers in the last decade: using 1 km MERIS data for modelling changes in land surface phenology, and Sarchils titled: Crop area estimation in Iraq based on satellite derived phenological metrics and the influence of war and drought.

European vegetation response to climate drivers in the last decade: using 1 km MERIS data for modelling changes in land surface phenology 
Victor F. Rodriguez-Galiano, Dr. Jadu Dash and Prof. Pete M. Atkinson
Phenological events, such as onset on greenness and senescence, occur at a specific time depending upon the local climatic conditions. Given this dependency between phenology and climate, the former has emerged as an important focus for scientific research because phenological events are regarded as an indicator of global warming. On the other hand, phenology also affects climate, playing an important role in many feedbacks of the climate system by influencing albedo, and fluxes of water, energy and CO2. Thus, a better understanding of the drivers of phenology is of paramount importance, especially for the senescence phenophases, to which the controlling factors are not well documented.
Temperature is one of the key parameters to regulate vegetation growing states in high latitude regions such as Europe, changes in air temperature will lead to changes in vegetation growth. Numerous studies have been conducted to evaluate the sensitivity of spring phenology to warming using plant phenological records. Additionally, others studies have used time series of satellite
sensor derived vegetation indexes to up-scale phenology (Land Surface Phenology; LSP) and study the influence of climate at global or continental scales. These studies performed linear regression
between phenology trends or anomalies and temperature values. However, the relation between phenology and climatological drivers is complex, and it is not necessarily linear. Therefore, there is a need for the application of new generation computational tools to assist in extracting as much information as possible from the rapidly growing volumes of digital data. This is the case of the
present research, related to a considerably large phenological and climatological dataset retrieved for the whole Pan-European Continent in the last decade.
Regression Trees (RT), a machine learning technique, appears as an alternative to traditional regression (global single predictive models), allowing for multiple regressions using recursive
partitioning. When the database has many variables which interact in complicated, nonlinear ways, assembling a single global model can be very difficult and hopelessly confusing. An alternative
approach to nonlinear regression is to sub-divide, or partition, the space into smaller regions, where the interactions are more manageable. The application of machine learning techniques has different advantages: i) ability to learn complex patterns, considering nonlinear relationships between explanatory and dependent variables; ii) generalisation ability, hence applicable to incomplete or noisy databases; iii) integration of different types of data in the analysis due to the absence of assumptions about the data used (e.g. normality); and iv) interpretability of results, since RT allows obtaining patterns for a better explanation of a given phenomenon, showing the most important variables and their threshold values.
This contribution reports the application of RT to model the differences in phenology for the natural vegetation of Europe in the last decade using temperature and precipitation data. Multi-temporal Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) Terrestrial Chlorophyll Index (MTCI) data at 1 km spatial resolution were used to derive key phenological metrics (onset on greenness and end of senescence) for a 10-year time series data from 2002 to 2012. Differences in phenology were computed as the difference from the decadal median. Surface air temperature data and precipitation were acquired from the European Climatic Assessment Dataset and interpolated at the satellite data
spatial resolution from an original of 0.25°. We used the daily mean temperature and precipitation and computed monthly and trimestral averages, as well as growing degree days and chilling
requirements for every year. All these variables were used as input to the Regression Tree model. This approach is, to the knowledge of the authors, attempted here for the first time. The goal is to
gain access to novel information regarding relationships and potential interactions between differences in phenology (synergy between different climatological drivers and threshold values in
temperature, growing degree days, etc), not directly or easily provided by more traditional statistical methods. Apart from focusing on the present case, this research aims to encourage other
researchers dealing with complex and interacting systems or processes to further contribute with new insights to this novel line of research.

Crop Area Estimation in Iraq Based on Satellite Derived Phenological Metrics and the Influence of
War and Drought
Sarchil Qader, Dr Jadu Dash and Prof. Pete M. Atkinson
War and political conflicts can affect the land use practices, particularly agriculture in a country and in turn could affect the availability of food grain and food security of a country. Over last decade, Iraq had been involved in ‘Post-Gulf’ war mainly to oppose the previous regime. Due to the political instability and fear for life during the war many farmers were unable to grown any crops, which
affected the overall production of the country. In addition to the war, due to its geographical location, the region is affected by irregularities in precipitation resulting in frequent occurrence of
drought. Both these factors made the region vulnerable to sustained food production.
However,  at present there are no reliable estimation of both crop areas and crop yield across the country. Therefore, the current research will attempt to use the phonological information to classify
the country’s land cover type in order to provide an accurate estimation of crop area and their changes through time. Thirteen successive years of 8 days Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
(NDVI) with the spatial resolution of 250 m derived from the Moderate Resolution Imagery Spectrometer (MODIS) were analysed. Fourier technique will use to smooth the phonological signal. Eleven phenology metrics were extracted from MODIS NDVI time series with elevation from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) for Iraq to classify the crop areas. A decision tree based
classifier was used to discriminate crop types (irrigated and rainfed) to natural vegetation. Initial results suggested significant changes in crop area in Iraq from 2001 to 2013 mostly attributed to Post-Gulf war and occurrence of drought. A Detail quantitative estimate of the impact of these factors on total crop area and resulting crop yield will be presented.

The next step: resilience of livelihoods to natural disaster

Authors: Dr John Duncan, Dr Jadu Dash and Dr Emma Tompkins. 

Delegates from Asian and Pacific governments met in Thailand from the 24^th June to review the current state of disaster risk reduction, the implementation of the Hyogo Framework and to produce a consensus for the post-2015 approach to disaster risk reduction. One of the high-level panel sessions at the meeting discussed how the post-2015 framework can enhance disaster resilience at the local level. This is an important step forward in recognising that the root causes of disasters are locally situated and that the impacts and response to disasters occur at a local level. Recent fieldwork in disaster prone Odisha, eastern India, highlights the importance of these discussions and the pressing need to address disaster vulnerability at a local scale to deliver effective outcomes.

Odisha is a state where rural poverty is prevalent and natural hazards ranging from intense cyclones striking intermittently to frequent droughts; heat waves and stagnant flooding consistently impede agricultural development. Here we see a rural population struggling to use agriculture to enhance their well-being, step out of poverty and reduce their underlying vulnerability to an increasingly variable climate. At the same time such climatic hazards are limiting agricultural growth, reinforcing and accentuating disaster vulnerability in the coastal regions.

Water logging in rice fields preventing planting of a rice crop this season.

Odisha is an interesting case study for the Asia-Pacific region as in some senses it has developed a progressive, decentralised, disaster management infrastructure over the past decade under the guidance of Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA). Policy has focussed on creating a dense coverage of cyclone shelters in vulnerable regions and developing local level community response plans. The success of this effort was illustrated in October 2013 where the institutional machinery from the state to the village level responded effectively to cyclone Phailin when there were less than 50 fatalities. This should be contrasted to the 1999 cyclone which struck Odisha when the disaster response was less organised and 10,000 lives were lost. Given cyclones in Asia still cause dramatic loss of life such as cyclone Nargis in Mynamar and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines there are lessons to be learnt from Odisha’s focus on local level responses to reducing fatalities.

Above, a cyclone shelter in coastal Odisha and below, a vulnerability map prepared as part of community disaster response.

However, Odisha also exemplifies the need for a fully holistic, locally sensitive approach to disaster risk reduction to be adopted. By this, disaster management should recognise that development will not be secured unless livelihoods are resilient to natural hazards and disaster vulnerability will not recede unless livelihoods enable people to accumulate assets and step out of poverty. For the majority in rural Odisha, agriculture is a major livelihood strategy, 70% of the state’s population are engaged in agriculture, the majority are small and marginal farmers excluded from functioning markets. Agriculture only contributes 16% to the state’s GDP and rural poverty rates stand at 39%, well above the national average. Agriculture in Odisha is exposed to climatic and environmental stresses ranging from waterlogging due to untimely rains, flash flooding, droughts, extreme heat and cyclones. Poverty alleviation, food security and development in rural Odisha will not be secured or achieved without effective and inclusive agricultural development which builds local disaster resilience and adaptive capacity to climatic stresses. On this note, the PREFUS project has undertaken two field trips to coastal Odisha this year exploring how to build the resilience of agriculture in coastal communities to disasters.

PREFUS stakeholder meeting held in Bhubaneswar, June 2014, with government and UN officials, NGOs, academics.

These field trips have involved visits to coastal communities discussing issues around the agriculture – livelihoods – disaster nexus with farmers, meetings with local government officials from the agriculture, development and disaster management sectors, interviews with state and local government officials and a stakeholder discussion workshop with participants from a range of NGOs, government departments, the United Nations, local academics and the media. What is evident from this fieldwork is that the government has been effective in creating an organisational structure which responds to early-warnings of impending hazards at the local level. This has also translated into an institutional awareness of the importance of disaster preparedness to save lives amongst local government officials and villagers. However, there is not the same awareness or priority given to making agriculture profitable and resilient to disasters. Also, the institutional capacity to support agriculture does not appear to be working as effectively at the grass roots level; there is a lack of resources in the agricultural sector preventing capacity building from reaching farmers, thus,  inhibiting their ability to adapt and respond to a variable and harsh climate. A common sentiment in discussions with various local stakeholders was of a spatial mismatch between state policy formulation and the needs and capabilities of local communities.

For coastal Odisha, and in many disaster prone, impoverished rural regions around Asia, it is important that discussions surrounding post-2015 framework for enhancing local level resilience to disasters provide the impetus and motivation to fully integrate disaster management and resilience building into the livelihoods sector. This research project will seek to contribute to this agenda identifying pockets of low agricultural resilience across Odisha, best practice for resilience building and how institutions with limited resources can facilitate disaster resilient rural development most effectively.

 

 

Julio Pastor-Guzman’s fieldwork in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

In December 2013, Julio embarked for fieldwork to the Yucatan Peninsula located in the South East of Mexico, washed by the Caribbean Sea and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The study area was a mangrove forest located within the boundaries of the Natural Reserves El Palmar and Ría Celestun.

Mangroves are inter-tidal tree communities which support a rich biodiversity including some emblematic species such as the Caribbean flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) and the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus). In addition, mangrove forests play a key role in the carbon cycle in the coastal zone as they absorb carbon from the atmosphere, store it and export it to adjacent ecosystems. Mangrove´s capacity to absorb carbon is closely related to photosynthesis, largely dependent on leaf photosynthetic pigments.

Consequently, the purpose of the campaign was to obtain spectral and pigment information from mangrove canopy to explore the possibility of using Landsat-8 data to predict leaves chemical composition. To acquire leaves spectral measurements Julio borrowed the Spectral Devices (ASD) FieldSpec Pro spectroradiometer from the Field Spectroscopy Facility of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Previous to his departure, Julio attended a training session in Field Spectroscopy in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh. Leaf chlorophyll was estimated using a portable chlorophyll meter SPAD 502.

The base for the field campaign was the Sisal Academic Unit from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Once in the field, 12 sampling units (SU) of about ~30x30m were identified covering the heterogeneity of the mangrove landscape in the region. Within each SU 2-3 tall trees were selected for sampling. Leaves from top and from below the top of canopy were collected using a pole with a cutter attached to the upper end. Leaves were then brought to dry ground to perform the measurements.

Julio states, ‘Fieldwork was an exciting, enriching and sometimes painful experience. Working in the mangrove is not a trivial task; the muddy ground, the mangrove aerial roots, the mosquitoes and the hot temperatures might complicate things from time to time. Nevertheless, the spectacular landscape, the opportunity to witness the diversity of species, the friendship one makes in the field and the contribution to the understanding of mangrove ecosystem make all the effort worth it. Fieldwork was carried in collaboration with the Sisal Academic Unit from the UNAM and with the support of guides from the Natural Reserves. ‘

Back in the University of Southampton Julio has been processing the data gathered in the field and preparing a manuscript for submission to an international refereed journal.