Impact Factors in monitoring of Typhoon induced Reservoir Rainfall

Li Zi-yang, Ma Fu-heng, Hu jiang and Zhang Zhan

Impact factors of typhoon induced reservoir rainfall are investigated based on the incomplete information system reduction method built up by considering information entropy and conditional information entropy, due to the complexity of the influenced factors to typhoon induced rainfall and the incompleteness of typhoon monitoring data. Based on the monitoring data of typhoon parameters and reservoir rainfall of a typical reservoir projects, the relationships between the reservoir rainfall capacity and typhoon parameters such as typhoon wind speed, wind force, level 7 and level 10 wind circle radius, typhoon central pressure, distance between typhoon center and reservoir location, are analyzed without introducing any other environmental factors. Throughout our study using information reduction method, it is found that typhoon wind speed, central pressure and distance between typhoon center and reservoir location are the three major impact factors to reservoir rainfall capacity and our results proposed herein may contribute to the monitoring of typhoon and guiding the analysis of rainfall capacity in the reservoir area.

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Farm Households’ Perceptions on Climate Change and Willingness to subscribe for Advisory Weather Forecasts in South West Nigeria

Oyekale T.O., Oyekale A.S. and Oyedepo J.A.

Climate change is a pressing development issue affecting agricultural productivity in many developing countries. This study examined the perceptions of farmers on climate change, their willingness to pay for mobile phone text messages on weather forecasts. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select respondents from three States in South West Nigeria. Data were analysed with Descriptive statistics and Probit regression model. The result revealed that 93.1% perceived climate change while 68.1% indicated their willing to pay. Majority of the farmers from Ogun and Osun States reported delay in rain commencement in 2013. Also, majority of the farmers in Osun State perceived that rain stopped unpredictably in 2011, while many from Ondo State reported this in 2013. The offered monthly subscription bids ranged from N100 to N500 and average monthly subscription the farmers were willing to pay was N126.32. The Probit results showed that factors significantly (p<0.05) influencing probability of willingness to subscribe for adversary weather forecast text messages were years of schooling (.0739), farming experience (-.0332), negative effect of climate change on output (-.6084), possession of GSM (1.8052), veracity of past prediction on weather forecast (.7888), past experience on rain stopping unpredictably (1.0451) and past effect of extremely high temperature (1.0451). It was recommended that network connectivity should improve in the rural area and prediction on weather forecast should be more accurate in order for farmers to pay for adversary services on weather forecast.

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