In July 2020, the GEO launched an international competition to design software to help policymakers balance the expected loss of productive land with the recovery of already degraded areas. Another GEO programme, Digital Earth Africa, includes open data for the entire continent of Africa (in collaboration with the Open Data Cube, FAO, UN World Food Programme and others). So far, it offers water observations from space, with crop monitoring maps in production. The locusts spread out across about 2,000,000 square miles (5,200,000km 2), while a locust infestation named Albert's swarm in 1875 covered 198,000 square miles (510,000km 2). [1] [4] The United States Entomological Commission wrote in 1880 that the infestation "covered a swath equal to the combined areas of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont." [5] Damage [ edit ] Plate II from Riley’s The locust plague in the United States (1877), showing extent of damage in 1874

Locust Hub, part of the Africa Geoportal, is an open-source platform that the FAO has been developing with geographic information system specialist ESRI. Andrew Stauffer, director of the geoportal programme at ESRI, says: “Anybody can create a free account and then use our tools to work with and compare the data.” Users can overlay weather data, soil conditions, evaporation and crop types, as well as locust numbers. “The cool thing about it is that it’s not a snapshot – every time the FAO updates the data, you’re seeing things in real time.” It felt like I was sitting at the feet of a master storyteller telling me his life story and this is really what this book is about. The locust plague encompassed the Dakota Territory, the Montana Territory, the Wyoming Territory, the Colorado Territory, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, the Indian Territory, and Texas. [1] The locust plague also reached the Northwest Territories and Manitoba; one 1877 observer theorized that a range of coniferous timber prevented them from overtaking some parts of Saskatchewan. While the exact mechanism behind why locust movement is inhibited by coniferous ranges is not known, the locusts were never observed to be able to cross these regions. [2] [3] Ultimately, all defenses proved inadequate, as the locusts far outnumbered the humans. The invaders not only destroyed the natural and cultivated vegetation but also left behind the odor of their excrement, which turned ponds and streams brown and left the water wholly unfit for consumption by man or animal. Birds and animals resorted to eating the dead locusts, but the feast left barnyard animals bloated, their meat inedible.Given that a single locust can consume a lettuce overnight, the impact of a whole swarm of them on crops – and on the farmers and communities dependent on those crops – can be devastating.

He resigned to produce a prominent current affairs radio program and a short time later, with George Miller, wrote the screenplay for Road Warrior/Mad Max 2. He also co-produced and wrote Dead Calm, the film which launched Nicole Kidman’s international movie career, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and a large number of TV movies and mini-series – including Bodyline and Bangkok Hilton – two of which received international Emmy nominations. In all, he has won over twenty film or television awards. I Am Pilgrim was my favourite read this year (so far...but it most likely will be). So am I anticipating this release? YES. a b Bristow, David L. (July 15, 2022). "Clouds of Grasshoppers in 1874". Nebraskaland . Retrieved November 6, 2022.I'm not sure that Terry Hayes wasn't secretly laughing at everyone when he wrote this book. It's pretty boring spy fare alternating with 5-star action sequences and the twist at the 70% mark defies serious description. I moved from boredom to tension to roll-on-the floor laughter at the coincidences and sheer make-believe. I've wasted hours of my life on this book which I thought would never end! It's the mix of genres that doesn't work, either would be fine on its own but I can't say any more without major spoilers. They looked like a great, white glistening cloud, for their wings caught the sunshine on them and made them look like a cloud of white vapor,” one unsettled pioneer wrote. “It seemed as if we were in a big snowstorm,” recalled another, “where the air was filled with enormous-size flakes.”

Epic and immersive, new and unexpected, and his research into spycraft is deep and compelling' Mail on Sunday One report released in 1874 suggested that just one family in 10 had enough provisions to last through the coming winter. To avoid starvation, many desperate settlers, especially in western Kansas and Nebraska, abandoned their homestead claims and their dreams of a new life to return east. Kansas alone lost as much as one-third of its population. Meanwhile, the flow of westbound emigrants to the Plains fell by as much as 20 percent. Amateur estimates from the period yielded similar results. In June 1875 Albert Child, a county judge and sometime meteorologist in Plattsmouth, Neb., observed one huge swarm as it passed overhead. By telegraphing for reports from surrounding towns and timing the rate of movement as the insects streamed by for five days, he estimated the swarm was some 1,800 miles long and 110 miles wide. Based on this data he calculated that it covered an astonishing 198,000 square miles. The locusts of 1874, by comparison, infested an estimated 2 million square miles.The Year of the Locust: The ground-breaking second novel from the internationally bestselling author of I AM PILGRIM