Free Software Recommended by the WMO
Expert Group Meeting on Software for Agrometeorological Data
Management
Database Management Software
MySQL -- Database Management Software
Perl -- Practical Extraction and Reporting Langauge
Perl Download for Windows
Python -- Object-oriented scripting language
NetCDF - Network Common Data Form -- From the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Free Software for Manipulating or Displaying NetCDF Data -- From the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
UDUNITS -- Library for Unit Conversion
Soils
SOTER - Soils and Terrian Digital Database
WOCAT - World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies
USDA SSSURGO - Soil Survey Geographic Data Base
Crop Modeling and Integration Software
CROPSYST -- Cropping Systems Simulation Model. Free, but you need to register to obtain a copy.
CROPWAT -- A computer program for irrigation planning and management
CLIMWAT -- A Climatic Database for CROPWAT
EPIC - Erosion Productivity Impact Calculator -- Crop model from the Texas A&M Blackland Research Center
Century Model (Colorado State University) -- A general model of the plant-soil nutrient cycle which is being used to simulate carbon and nutrient dynamics for different types of ecosystems including grasslands, agricultural lands, forests and savannas.
Other FAO and FEWS Software
COKIRGING -- FAO Software for the spatial interpolation of agro-climatic data
AGMAN -- Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) agricultural database manager (FEWS). It is designed to facilitate the archiving, analysis, and presentation of agricultural production data. Its capabilities include the organization and storage of essential agricultural production statistics for any given reporting unit, crop, or time period. Data are available for the following countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
RAINMAN -- FEWS's method for compiling and updating a dekadal (10-day) rainfall database. With current and historical dekadal rainfall data, RAINMAN can produce graphs, charts, and tables of averages, accumulations, comparisons, and estimations of rainfall, which can be viewed on the screen, captured in a file, or printed as hardcopy. Data are available for the following countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
PRICEMAN -- FEWS's price management, analysis, and presentation software program. It allows quick graphic presentation of prices so that current prices can be visualized and compared to recent and previous years. Data are available for the following countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
NETMAN -- FEWS's integrated Internet version of SPACEMAN and PRICEMAN. It is designed to facilitate the analysis and presentation of data without requiring the user to manage the underlying data. It offers the same analysis capabilities as the desktop versions of SPACEMAN and PRICEMAN, but the data reside in a centralized database at the EROS Data Center, and analysis and results are provided via the Internet.
SPACEMAN -- FEWS's image statistics data manager. It is designed to facilitate the archiving, analysis, and presentation of image statistics data. Its capabilities include the organization, storage and analysis of image statistics over a period of time. The software is applicable to any time series image data (e.g., NDVI, RFE).
GIS and Spatial Iamge Analysis Software
ArcExplorer from ESRI
GrADS - GRid Analysis and Display System -- The Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) is an interactive desktop tool that is used for easy access, manipulation, and visualization of earth science data. GrADS has been implemented worldwide on a variety of commonly used operating systems and is freely distributed over the Internet
MetaLite -- MetaLite is a simple tool for collecting and validating Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) compliant metadata. It allows the user to quickly document geospatial data while still adhering to FGDC Metadata Content Standards
Georeferenced digital data sets
ADDAPIX - Pixel-by-pixel clustering of image (time) series -- FAO
WINDISP - Map and Image Display and Analysis Software -- FAO
Miscellanous Software
CLIMGEN - Climatic Data Generator
List of Linux Distribution Sources -- Operating System
Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 -- Free PDF file Viewer
Free Software Links
Compendium of On-Line Soil Survey Information from International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (Netherlands)
Register of Ecological Models Search an European meta-database for existing mathematical models in ecology.
Other Software (at cost, not free)
DSSAT - Decision Support System for AgroTechnology Transfer Software combining crop soil and weather data bases and programs to manage them, with crop models and application programs, to simulate multi-year outcomes of crop management strategies.
ALES - Automated Land Evaluation System from Cornell University, Department of Soil, Crop, & Atmospheric Sciences, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
WOFOST - Daily Crop Growth Model