Global climate change and population dynamics have made the use of cutting -edge digital technologies necessary in the pursuit of improved understanding of their impacts. Envirotyping is a relatively new approach of analyzing and classifying regions of similar environmental signatures. It incorporates multivariate analyses encompassing such diverse factors as soils, climate and weather, vegetation type, topography, and land use, among others. The approach relies upon the availability of earth observation data – primarily from satellite remote sensing – to a large extent. It brings together skills from multiple disciplines such as environmental sciences, data sciences such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, and life sciences.

Currently, the primary application of envirotyping is in agriculture for determining and assimilating the effects of the environment on crop or animal health for more environment - friendly, sustainable processes. In conjunction with genotyping and phenotyping, envirotyping also facilitates creation of superior inputs such as seeds by aiding the modern genome-based breeding process. This talk will introduce envirotyping to the audience, along w ith basics of remote sensing that underlie the envirotyping process pipeline. Specific examples of usage instances will also be presented, making a case for its fast adoption by the agro industry.

Джана Рагавендра Белур (Dr. Raghavendra B. Jana)

Dr. Jana is a Senior Research Scientist and Lead of the Envirotyping and Digitalization thrust of the Center for AgroTechnologies at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), Moscow. The primary focus of Raghu’s current research is on observation and modeling of environmental processes, and their application in enhancing agricultural productivity. He utilizes data science and artificial intelligence techniques in conjunction with process-based modeling to help improve the efficiency of water and nutrient use in agriculture, especially in the context of climate change. Raghu received his Ph.D. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering (focus: Soil Hydrology) from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, USA in 2010. His doctoral research was funded by a NASA Earth System Sciences Fellowship. Before coming to Russia, Raghu worked at the Indian Institute of Science (India), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Saudi Arabia), University of Stuttgart (Germany), and Texas A&M University (USA). He has been involved in projects funded by NASA, NSF (USA), USDA, Russian Science Foundation, and the World Bank, among others. He is currently collaborating with agro holdings in Russia to improve crop yield and resource use efficiency.