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. 2025 Feb 18;11(4):e42740.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2025.e42740. eCollection 2025 Feb 28.

DROP app: A hydroclimate information service to deliver scientific rainfall, local rainfall, and soil moisture forecasts for agricultural decision-making

Samuel Jonson Sutanto  1 , Spyridon Paparrizos  1 , Lisanne Nauta  1 , Iwan Supit  1 , Victoria Lefèvre  2 , Gordana Kranjac-Berisavljevic  3 , Bizoola Zinzoola Gandaa  3 , Richard Dogbey  1   3 , Baba Mohammadu Jamaldeen  3 , Fulco Ludwig  1
Affiliations

DROP app: A hydroclimate information service to deliver scientific rainfall, local rainfall, and soil moisture forecasts for agricultural decision-making

Samuel Jonson Sutanto et al. Heliyon. .

Abstract

Weather and Climate Information Services developed for agriculture often only provide scientific weather and climate forecasts on various timescales. Yet, local forecasts derived from indigenous knowledge and soil moisture information are still missing. In this study, we evaluate the implementation of the DROP app, a hydroclimate information service, offering both local (LF) and scientific rainfall forecasts (SF) and soil moisture forecasts, that was designed with and for smallholder farmers working on rainfed agriculture in northern Ghana. Results of the forecast assessment show that the LF generates a high probability of rain detection (POD), with a minimum value of 0.7. The hybrid forecast (HF) that integrates the SF and LF yields the highest POD value of 0.9 compared to others. However, the hybrid system also has a high number of false alarms which results in an overall lower forecast performance of HF compared to SF. Using forecasts obtained from the app, farmers adjusted their farming activities, such as time of sowing, planting and weeding dates, fertilizer and herbicide application, and harvesting. Although some limitations exist, the DROP app has potential to deliver actionable knowledge for climate-smart farm decision-making and thus, facilitate effective agriculture management.

Keywords: Agriculture practices; Forecast skills; Soil moisture forecasts; Weather forecasts.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Spyridon Paparrizos reports financial support was provided by the ERA-NET-COFUND. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Map showing locations of the DROP app implementation area in northern Ghana. Gbulung is located in the Kumbungu district and Nakpanzoo and Yapalsi are located in the Savelugu district.
Figure 2
Figure 2
a) Farmers' local prediction for rainfall (low, medium, high, and very high) and b) 14 local indicators that farmers observed to predict the rainfall.
Figure 3
Figure 3
a) Example of the local precipitation forecast provided by the farmer and b) scientific weather forecasts for 1-day, 7-day, and 14-day retrieved from the meteoblue API:URL by the DROP app.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Soil moisture forecast for 16 June 2022 with 7 days lead time.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The performance of scientific forecast (SF), local forecast (LF), and hybrid forecast (HF). POD stands for probability of detection, FAR stands for false alarm ratio (FAR), and HK stands for the Hanssen-Kuipers discriminant.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Changes made by farmers (n=27) based on forecast information obtained from the DROP app.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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