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Setting up the monitoring network
Before setting up a monitoring network a decision has to be made on the type of network that is appropriate for the country or region at hand. This chapter outlines the practical steps to set up such a network given the choice made in the previous chapter.
A station-based network
Most countries have an extensive network of meteorological stations. The most important types of monitoring stations are :
- Synoptic stations. These stations provide hourly data on a real-time basis. Usually these data are fed into the global GTS system of WMO. Most of these stations provide weather data that enable users to calculate the Penman-Monteith reference evaporation (ET0). A subset of these stations do upper-air observations, which is less interesting for agrometeorological purposes.
- Realtime Rainfall stations. These stations monitor rainfall and send in their data to the National Meteorological Office once a day.
- Off-line rainfall stations that send in their daily data once a month or even once a year. These stations are important for climatic studies and the provision of normal data.
Which stations are to be included in the crop monitoring network? A few criteria:
- The station should be in an area where the monitoring crops are located.
- A reasonably stable stream of data on de decadal basis (or daily, hourly basis) should reach the crop forecasting unit.
- Stations should be evenly spread in crop growing areas. It does not make sense to include five stations in a 10 by 10 kilometer area (this is often the case in a capital city)
The following fields for every station are needed:
- ID (national or international number)
- Name (spelling is sometimes an issue)
- Longitude
- Latitude
- Altitude
- Province (optional)
- District (optional)