An operational version of the AgriNotebook and the Geoportals was implemented and deployed by GEOTEC for the 2016 rice season in Spain, Italy and Greece, and used by regional and local stakeholders, particularly local farmers and field workers.

They include exciting new features and updates, some of them to complete or extend existing functionality, others as a result of feedback on earlier version by the end users. We were happy to see that this user-centric approach was well received by end users, and the new versions of the ERMES tools were enthusiastically welcomed.

One of the biggest changes is the extension of the reach of the (regional) geoportal into Africa, where rice regions in Gambia and Senegal are now being monitored. Next to this, a user permission system was implemented for the local geoportal which allows different user profiles with different privileges. In particular, farmers can now grant appropriate access to cooperators (e.g. field workers), and guests are provided with a restricted view. Another interesting extension is the real-time alerting system, which allows farmers to receive email alerts when certain critical situations appear. At this moment, the geoportal supports development stage and rice blast infection risk alerting. Reporting has also been significantly improved, now allowing end users to export/print any information available in the geoportal: ERMES products can be printed as pdf or downloaded though the ERMES catalogue, and graphs can be exported as raw data or as image. Finally, some miscellaneous improvements were implemented. For example, a coordinates widget helps the users to locate themselves, or immediately focus on an area using latitude and longitude coordinated.

The ERMES Smart App, designed to collect in-situ field observations, was re-baptized as AgriNotebook, bringing its name closer to the intended use of the app. The app got an extensive make-over, particularly revamping all basemaps to provide higher quality and more details. The offline functionality was also consolidated: the use of more advanced compression techniques now allows full offline map availability for all regions and at all zoom levels. Finally, a social aspect was added to AgriNotebook, allowing farmers to share observations.

The connection between the geoportal and AgriNotebook was also strengthened. First, the farmer is now offered a clearer overview of his in-situ collected data in the geoportal, but more importantly, the farmer can now manage all this information through the geoportal (i.e., modify or delete existing observations).

It has definitely been a year of intense and exciting work, and we at GEOTEC are very pleased with the work achieved.