At ILRI, geographic information systems (GIS) are being used as a tool to integrate a wide variety of spatial information to analyze the constraints to animal agriculture, target ILRI technologies to farmers' needs, and assess the impacts of new technologies around the world. GIS has become an integral part of an interdisciplinary research approach within the institute and has been applied to natural resource management and environmental studies, land-use change analysis, epidemiology, socioeconomics, smallholder market-oriented dairy systems research and impact assessment. The Institute's main GIS laboratory is located within the Systems Analysis and Impact Assessment Project on the Nairobi campus, but the Nairobi GIS team helps ILRI researchers integrate and analyze geo-graphic data around the globe such as in Niger, Nigeria, Ethiopia, India and Latin America.
GIS Capacity at ILRI
The GIS capacity at ILRI has grown from one GIS analyst working on an
IBM Model 70 microcomputer in 1989 to a state-of-the art GIS laboratory
with 15 full-time analysts working on a multitude of projects. Complementary
GIS capacity exists at other ILRI outposts.
Hardware Platforms and Software
The ILRI GIS team conducts spatial analyses, satellite image processing
and database development on Pentium PC workstations, using ARC/INFO 8,
Arcview, ERDAS and IDRISI32.
Services
The ILRI GIS team is willing to exchange GIS data with scientists at other
institutes around the globe. Thousands of databases have been collected
or assem-bled at global, continental, regional, country and site-specific
scales, and have been made freely available to collaborators.
For
further information
Please contact:
Russ Kruska
International Livestock Research Institute
P.O. Box 30709, Nairobi, Kenya
Phone: +254-2- 630 743
Fax: +254-2-630 499
E-mail: r.kruska@cgnet.com