New publication on collecting socio-environmental data via SMS

A new paper by Giroux et al., A high-frequency mobile phone data collection approach for research in social-environmental systems: Applications in climate variability and food security in sub-Saharan Africa, has just been published in Environmental Modeling & Software. The paper examines the potential for the collection of social-environmental data by farmers via short-message service (SMS), including the benefits in terms of timing and frequency of data collection, cost, and burden on respondents, as well as limitations with regards to data integration. The paper also presents the architecture for managing and processing heterogeneous data, tools to assess data quality, as well as visualization and analysis tools. It presents this work in the context of ongoing surveys of smallholder farmers in Kenya and Zambia. Access the paper here.