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<OL> <LI> Establish a real-time, Web based GIS reporting system for new, emerging and endemic diseases and pests. <LI> Develop and implement appropriate disease/pest detection, sampling and assessment protocols for use by "First Responders" as part of the risk assessment/forensics process. <LI>Develop remote sensing technologies to temporally and spatially identify and monitor new and emerging pathogens and pests, and to develop models that accurately estimate disease/pest impact on plant health and yield. <LI>Develop atmospheric transport models to predict pathogen/pest spread from confirmed sources of new and emerging diseases and pests.<LI> Develop weather-based GIS disease/pest models to estimate the risk of infection/establishment beyond the point of initial disease/pest detection. <LI> Disseminate timely recommendations regarding the deployement of effective disease/pest mitigation tactics for farm producers.
NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: US agriculture is vulnerable to attack using plant pathogens as weapons. One of the basic tenets of plant biosecurity is that the presence, actual or predicted distribution, intensity, and economic impact of any yield-reducing factor(s) must be known. As a nation, we must establish a coordinated and effective detection, monitoring, and response system to mitigate terrorists acts aimed at US agriculture. Steps can be taken to minimize the risk of biological attack on US agriculture. The development of a real-time GIS-based (geographic information system) reporting system for new and emerging agricultural pathogens and pests is extremely relevant in the era of agricultural bioterrorism. The goal is to establish a real-time, GIS database network to detect, diagnose, report, monitor, map (temporally and spatially), and predict the spread of new and emerging plant diseases and pests. Such networks could also be used to geospatially and temporally monitor endemic pathogens/pests. This project will develop real-time risk assessment tools to support the National Plant Diagnostic Network (NPDN).
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APPROACH: The goal of this project is to enhance the value of the National Plant Diagnostic Network Center (NPDN). The NPDN has tremendous potential to facilitate the rapid exchange of critical diagnostic information among the five Regional Diagnostic Centers. During crises, the capability to exchange real-time information is paramount to effectively mitigate the potential impacts of new and emerging diseases and pests. This will require the following: (i) the rapid detection of new and emerging diseases and pests, (ii) the documented geographical distribution (by using geographic information systems (GIS) to map disease/pest prevalence), the predicted geographic distribution and establishment of new and emerging diseases and pests, (iv) the predicted risk (by generating real-time GIS risk maps) of pathogen/pest establishment beyond the initial point(s) of detection, and, (v) the rapid dissemination of disease/pest management mitigation tactics. This goal can be accomplished only through a coordinated effort among the Regional Diagnostic Centers to develop compatible hardware and software platforms. <P>
To date, three of the five Regional Diagnostic Centers, The Great Plains Diagnostic Network (GPDN, Kansas State University), the North Central Plant Diagnostic Network (NCPDN, Michigan State University), and the Northeast Plant Diagnostic Network (NEPDN, Cornell University), have agreed to coordinate hardware and software to communicate and share diagnostic data in real-time. Rather than having each Regional Diagnostic Center develop its own GIS capabilities, it is more cost effective for our research team to develop compatible GIS, web-based capabilities for all five Regional Diagnostic Centers. Therefore, a primary goal of this project is to develop GIS, web-based products that will significantly enhance the value of NPDN and the Plant Diagnostic Information System (PDIS) database. Since ESRI GIS software is now the official USDA software package for all GIS applications, a dedicated ESRI GIS server will be used to allow institutional personnel to view specific geospatial data layers, such as historical/real time weather and confirmed disease/pest reports, etc. The Project Director and Principal Investigators have extensive experience in using ESRI GIS software to map disease/pest intensity (prevalence, incidence, severity) temporally and spatially at all spatial scales (within-field, among fields, county, state, region). <P>
It is our plan to develop a vertical series of linked modules including: (i) a real-time, GIS disease/pest mapping capability that can generate real-time GIS maps (i.e. monitor the occurrence and spatial spread of new and emerging pathogens and pests in real-time), (ii) modified atmospheric transport models (such as HYSPLIT and MM5) to predict and geospatially depict pathogen (pest) short, meso, and long-distance dissemination, and, (iii) disease forecasting (warning) models to predict pathogen (pest) infection (establishment). These modules will be linked and delivered as a web-based system.