Craig, Colorado
Written by Josiah Thomas, EFC Region 8 Category 2 Specialist
In order to properly plan for climate-related changes to water intake, the city of Craig, Colorado would like to coordinate data analysis efforts with Josiah Thomas. The effort of the project is to identify irrigation statistics in conjunction to greenspace characteristics. We will be applying machine learning tools in order to analyze greenspace characteristics, and use those findings to analyze irrigation rates. This project will serve as a basis for analyzing future and past data to ensure that cities in Colorado are best prepared to combat drought and scarcity.
Climate change is an issue that we all will face on a yearly basis in the near future. In order to properly prepare, one of the first water characteristics that will be cut is irrigation. As such, it seems natural that irrigation statistics are identified. Since there is no way to easily identify irrigation statistics, a good way to analyze it is through aerial imagery.
Using the national agriculture imagery program, I proposed that we calculate the normalized vegetation index and use it to identify which areas are most susceptible to water overuse. Using that dataset, we can then automate the identification of irrigation zones to facilitate public notification and isolate which zones need to reduce irrigation levels to ensure proper water provision to the whole city.
This project was an excellent start to identifying urban greenspace characteristics and irrigation levels. It served as a basis for developing a process for processing, mapping, discretizing, and creating a model for greenspace data for cities in Colorado. I created a dataset of NDVI levels, discretized the data, and implemented a K-means clustering algorithm to identify irrigation zones. Overall, the project was a success especially considering we may be going into a year of drought.
This process can be repeated for other cities in the country given proper data availability. I intend to use this process for other cities and projects in Colorado. Identifying greenspace and irrigation statistics for a city can be instrumental for planning and drought resilience. The process can also be repeated yearly to identify trends in irrigation zones.
Savings $10,000.00