Rain gauge and soil moisture probe deployment in Zambia

Last month Stephanie, Diana, and Molly were in Zambia deploying a suite of rain gauges and soil moisture probes as part of our NSF-funded collaboration on climate, resilience, and food security with Tom Evans at Indiana University and the Zambia Agricultural Research Institute.

With the great help of ZARI researchers and students, they were able to get 20 sets of instruments deployed in communities across the southern and eastern provinces. These gauges and instruments will be coupled with detailed surveys and focus group activities. The combination of social and biophysical data will allow us to understand how both social and physical dynamics interact to affect the resilience of subsistence dryland farmers and their families across a range of geographical settings within each province. We’ll be back out in Zambia in late December, 2011 to conduct measurements on crop water use efficiency.