"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
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LEARN7: An environmental confluence
I currently live in Austin, Texas. Austin is in many ways a unique city—we're one of the greenest cities in the United States. A significant portion of our power comes from nearby solar or wind installations. While Austin might be better off energywise, we are in no way invulnerable to the volatility of the modern city, especially in matters of food and water.
An aside: I set up an Ushahidi "sandbox" on a server of mine just so I could experiment with it. I set up a few categories relating to EVOKE thinking about the possible uses it could have on this network. Feel free to screw around with it and test out the software's capabilities for yourself.
Have you ever heard the expression "If you don't like the weather in Texas, wait five minutes"? This holds doubly true in Austin. Austin is at the confluence of several major environmental zones in the southern United States—the humid, marshy Gulf of Mexico to our southeast, the dry arid deserts of the desert Southwest, the plains and grassland to the north, and the more temperate forests to our east and northeast.
Anyways, due to this melding of climatic zones, Austin is actually rather precariously positioned in terms of climate. Specifically, rainfall. Austin's environment is characterized by an unsteady supply of rain. Some years, we have severe droughts. For example, this past summer (2009), the level of our local lake dropped about 50 feet. Now, it's up 60 feet from that 2009 low due to changing weather patterns. With global warming and changing weather patterns, who knows where we'll be this time next year?
This is why I feel that, as a resident of Austin, I should start thinking about the possibilities of severe drought in central Texas.
Now, what can Ushahidi do about something as simple as a drought? A lot of things, actually.
Data
At its core, Ushahidi is a simple map. Its power comes from the types of data that are plotted on the map and how easily that data is posted. In a severe drought situation, several main things would have to be tracked. Here's my outline:
Vital
- Drinking water - sources of fresh water for personal consumption and use.
- Usable water - water unfit for drinking, but fit for use almost anywhere else.
- Information/distribution centers - locations where possible supplies (water filtration? rain water harvesters?) and information would be distributed
Useful
- Possible storms - even in a continued drought, there are occasional storms. Alerting people of these could allow people to make the most of rainwater collection and the like.
- Lake data points - informational data markers on the water levels in major bodies of water.
- Water restriction areas - one method that Austin has already put into use during severe droughts is voluntary/mandatory restrictions on outdoor water use. A Ushahidi map could highlight areas of the city that currently could/couldn't use water.
- "On the ground" reports - location-based reports relating to the general topic of water usage and conservation
An aside: I set up an Ushahidi "sandbox" on a server of mine just so I could experiment with it. I set up a few categories relating to EVOKE thinking about the possible uses it could have on this network. Feel free to screw around with it and test out the software's capabilities for yourself.
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