Authors
Christopher Chagumaira
Publication date
2022/10
Journal
Geospatial modelling of soil geochemistry at national-scale for improved human nutrition
Description
There is increasing awareness that, while much progress has been made to address malnutrition with respect to energy and protein supply, micronutrients (such as zinc, iron, iodine and selenium) may remain deficient among populations of many countries (Ligowe et al. 2020). This micronutrient deficiency (MND) or ‘hidden hunger’has implications for human health, growth and cognitive function. In the GeoNutrition project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, micronutrient studies in soil, crops and the human population are being conducted in Malawi and Ethiopia (Gashu et al. 2020, 2021). There is interest in how MND problems may vary spatially due to variation in soil and other environmental conditions. If this occurs, then interventions might be more effectively targeted where particular MND are prevalent. Through the GeoNutrition project, a large dataset has been collected on soil and crop micronutrient status in Malawi and Ethiopia. This allows the micronutrient concentration in soil and staple crops to be mapped. The spatial predictions are uncertain, but the statistical models on which they are based allow us to compute the probability that a particular micronutrient concentration falls below or above a nutritionally relevant threshold at some unsampled location. It is often suggested that mapping this probability will help interpret the information while allowing for its uncertainty in the spatial data. However, it remains unclear how various stakeholders, for whom such information is required to support decisions on interventions to address MND, would use the probabilities in order to account for uncertainty. In this paper we describe …
Scholar articles
C Chagumaira - Geospatial modelling of soil geochemistry at national …, 2022