Update on Thesis Research

So, before I begin, I'll post my now out-of-date Thesis proposal (more on that later).

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Assessing Vulnerability To and Emergency Management Methods for Extreme Cold in Khorogh, Tajikistan

Abstract

Tajikistan is home to some of the world’s most remote mountain villages in the Pamir Mountains, and with an average elevation of 3000m and a continental interior location, the country is prone to high temperature variability throughout the year, including extreme cold in the winter.  This former Soviet outpost is also the poorest of the 15 former Soviet Socialist Republics, has suffered severe infrastructural battering from the fall of the USSR and years of subsequent civil war, and sees regular fluctuations in its energy and food production capacities.  There exist bodies of research within several fields including agriculture, energy, health, hazards and disasters, NGO-led aid, and the potential of GIS and Remote Sensing within this region.  However, there is little research to-date focusing specifically on mitigation techniques for extreme cold weather in the remote Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO).  Essentially all research reviewed pertaining to the mountain communities of Tajikistan depict a cycle of poor infrastructure, rampant resource mismanagement, land degradation, poverty, critically fragile education and health sectors, a long list of annual environmental hazards, and alienation, which have rendered the Badakhshan Region of Tajikistan highly vulnerable to the impacts of extreme cold weather.  The objective of this project is to first operationalize vulnerability in the context of GBAO, Tajikistan.  The second objective is to perform a case study by semi-structured interviews with hospital, school, health, and community staff, village elders, and households within Khorog to identify vulnerability to, and emergency management methods for extreme cold weather within the GBAO.  It is hypothesized that the GBAO is highly vulnerable to extreme cold, resulting from both proximity to a hazardous area, as well as socially-driven vulnerability.  It is also hypothesized that the GBAO constitutes repetitive, ineffective, and unsustainable mitigation and preparation methods for extreme cold weather.  To test these hypotheses, a representative sample of the capital city of the GBAO, Khorog, will be selected.  Social science research will then be carried out across the city in the form of semi-structured interviews with village elders, hospital, school, health, and community staff, as well as semi-structured interviews with households within the city.  .

Introduction

The Central Asian Republic of Tajikistan is one of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (Figures 1, 2).  It is 93% mountainous, straddles the Roof of the World, and lies right along the stomping grounds of Alexander the Great and Marco Polo.  It is one of five Central Asian Republics along with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, and is bordered by China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, and Afghanistan to the south.  Geographically, Tajikistan is 93% mountainous with the lowest-lying areas being to the far NW and SW of the country.  The country is dominated physically by two large west-to-east mountain ranges north of Dushanbe, the Zeravshan and Fannsky Gorry ranges, with several peaks above 5,000m (MSL), and extending from the Pamir Knot by the mighty Pamir Mountains, an extension of the Himalayan Range of Nepal, China, and Kashmir (India/Pakistan, contested), and of the Tien Shan Range of western China, all to the east, with numerous peaks in excess of 7,000m (MSL), the tallest of which, Ismoil Somoni Peak, at 7,495m (MSL) is the highest in all of the former Soviet Union.

Ethnically, Tajikistan is greatly divided amongst Tajiks, Uzbeks, Russians, Kyrgyz, Turkic, and Gharmi peoples, and Pamiri peoples in the Pamir Mountains.  The country has seen extensive turmoil since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, marked by civil war along ethnic, religious, and political lines, drug trafficking and threatened spread of Islamic Fundamentalism in the south beckoning the use of Russian military force, natural disasters, large-scale poverty, and a humanitarian crisis gaining the attention of the United Nations.

Climatically, the Zeravshan River Valley and greater Dushanbe region to the south experience a hot summer continental climate with temperatures soaring above 40C at times, while the far west and north experience a Mediterranean climate.  The central part of the country, the western GBAO (and western Pamir Mountains) experience a steppe climate.  Eastern GBAO is classified as a desert climate, with erratic precipitation patterns and orographic rain shadows (Figure 3). 

            This author has lived in Tajikistan for over 4 months as a teacher, and has seen firsthand the deficiencies of the entire country, particularly mountainous communities, to extreme cold, as well as the subsequent necessity for further research into emergency management techniques for, and vulnerabilities to this hazard.  There are several reasons this is important.  High fuel and food insecurity is exacerbated by extreme cold.  Tajikistan is also prone to a long list of natural hazards, among which are avalanche, earthquakes, flood, and mass wasting.  These hazards, when realized as disasters, and coupled with extreme cold during winter months, can lead to a relatively new form of crisis in the international community known as a ‘compound disaster’, meaning that when these disasters do occur, emergency response efforts can be further complicated by extreme cold weather.  It is necessary to identify the most effective methods of dealing with extreme cold both in everyday life, and more importantly during times of crisis.  Most of the nation is prone to electricity outages, forcing them to rely on non-electrical means of warmth for much of the year in remote mountainous regions.  This and deficiencies in several other primary sectors calls for a comprehensive approach to identification of, and rectification of deficiencies in mitigation and preparation methods for extreme cold in rural mountainous communities before emergency management methods for other natural disasters occurring during winter months in these remote areas can be truly effective.

Literature Review

Tajikistan is a heavily mountainous Central Asian country which is extremely vulnerable to natural hazards, among which are earthquakes, mass wasting, floods, avalanche, and extreme cold, particularly within mountain communities.  Research within Tajikistan has been limited for several reasons, including civil war, reconstruction, poor economy, and poor academic scholarship promotion.  There has been limited research conducted, however, and in instances, collaboration among Soviet and western scientists, particularly during the time of The Great Game, the strategic competition between the Russian and British empires for supremacy in Central Asia during the 19^th century(Yablokov, 2001).  Research was not easily conducted during and immediately after the fall of the USSR.  There were, however, scientists interested in developing, implementing, and furthering social science research within Russia and other former SSR’s (Porfiriev et. al., 1996). 

For Tajikistan, the mid-1990’s saw the country gripped in the clutches of a brutal civil war fought over religion, politics, and ethnicity.  Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced during the Soviet era, and return migration took place after the collapse of the Soviet Union, seeing the particular return of Pamiri people to the Pamir Mountains region within the GBAO.  With this return migration also came a return, albeit slow and marginal, to the indigenous way of life for many of these mountain people(Deng, 1996). 

The first component of this project deals with operationalizing vulnerability in the context of GBAO, Tajikistan.  Vulnerability can take on many definitions, several aspects, and can be measured by a number of methods(Cutter, 1996).  Vulnerability is essentially the potential for loss, and is a primary factor to consider when forming mitigation strategies for natural hazards.  Tajikistan is subject to a multitude of natural hazards, among which are floods, earthquakes, avalanche, and mass wasting.  The Pamir Mountains also regularly experience temperatures below -25C in the winter.  With the multitude of hazards with which the country must deal, and with critically fragile infrastructure, extreme cold can both further propagate negative impacts from other hazards, as well as hamper response and recovery efforts.  The combination of one hazard with another is a relatively new field of research termed “compound disaster”.

More research on the concept of compound disasters was conducted in the aftermath of an event in the winter of 2007-2008 in Tajikistan(Kelly, 2009).  Drought and subsequent decreased water supplies for hydroelectric sources, increasing fuel and food prices coupled with decreasing supplies of both, and lack of investment in infrastructure, health care, and education in Tajikistan all combined with an extremely cold winter which saw temperatures remain below freezing for well over a month in Dushanbe, which is around 900m above MSL in elevation, well below the national average, to create a disastrous situation beckoning the attention of the international humanitarian community.  Collaboration with the Tajik government and gaining access to government data and documents proved difficult, both because of the government’s fear of the latter reflecting negatively on the government and because of the government’s refusal to recognize the situation as critical.

This new type of “compound disaster” was new and as such very difficult to define by the international community.  This made effective logistical and communication operations difficult, especially in the Pamir Mountains.  24-hour electricity cut-offs, road blockage, poor harvests, abnormally large snowfall amounts, damaged water, health, and hygiene infrastructure, and poor hazard awareness were all issues faced by the international community early in 2008 when the United Nations launched a Flash Appeal(United Nations, 2008).  One of the results of this appeal was the realization that while Tajikistan is one of the most vulnerable countries on earth to natural hazards, its lack of comprehensive mitigation and preparation methods for extreme cold weather, particularly in remote mountainous regions of the country, places it at even higher risk of catastrophic nation-wide failure of basic services, including education and medical care.  Both education and medical care suffered during the winter of 2007-08, as many hospitals were forced to release patients under care due to lack of facility heating, clean water, access, and resources.  The same was true for most rural schools, as 90% of which are estimated to have no functioning heating system, students and teachers were unable to sufficiently heat schools for operation, although it is not the official policy of the Tajik government to close schools due to lack of heating in winter.  While rural communities in the Badakhshan region commonly experience full electricity outages, this situation was an example of how, coupled with extreme cold, high food and fuel insecurity, and scarce resources, a compound crisis can quickly develop(United Nations, 2008).

Research on land development, resource conservation, and energy within the mountainous regions of Tajikistan has been conducted on various scales and for various reasons.  Post-Soviet-era development within Tajikistan has been slow and difficult, particularly in the GBAO.  There are a number of reasons for this, including extensive internal migration within Tajikistan, a decrease or cessation of food, energy, and infrastructure subsidies following the collapse of the USSR, civil war, and political alienation(Breu et. al., 2005).  Land degradation is a serious problem within the Pamir Mountains.  Sparse and erratic precipitation patterns, little vegetation, and improper land use can lead to severe nature- and hum-induced land degradation in the Pamirs.  Another issue is the fact that only a very small percentage of the total land cover in the Pamir Mountains is actually arable.  With very few wooded species growing in the Pamirs, sources of fuel for heating and cooking are becoming sparse without subsidies, and new methods will be required in the future(Jansky et. al., 2006).

A research study conducted in 2007 focused on conservation issues facing the Tajik National Park in central Tajikistan(Haslinger et.al., 2007).  The GBAO developed a heavy reliance on Soviet fuel sources during the USSR, and after its collapse experienced an artificially high population hike due to return migration.  Traditional nomadic settlements reflected, to a large degree, the availability of natural resources in the form of food, pasture land, water, and livestock.  This way of life was largely abandoned during the Soviet period.  This study found three primary issues facing the park: continued and intensified use of biomass as fuel sources, inappropriate pasture use, and increased pressure on wildlife, including endangered species.  This research can be expanded across the Badakhshan region, and employed to identify issues of extreme cold weather mitigation and management, as with increased cold will also come an increase in the misuse of these fuel and food sources(Haslinger et.al., 2007).

In response to this issue of land degradation, research on possible alternative fuel and food sources is necessary.  From the onset of Tajikistan’s induction into the Soviet Union, kitchen gardens consisting of both food and livestock were permitted at the household level.  These were largely extensions of the home and were used to offset diet deficiencies.  At the end of the USSR, surplus food from kitchen gardens constituted one third of the food sold at local markets, and played an especially vital role in the lives of rural families(Rowe, 2009).

The GBAO reliance on resources in the form of food, electricity, and fuels from the Soviet Union furthered the region’s vulnerability, and at the end of the Soviet era, the GBAO was left without any answers.  The subsequent years saw rural Tajikistan, having already lost 90% of its forests to the USSR, rely heavily on local natural resources for energy, often resulting in severe land degradation, especially in the GBAO with 87% of its 213,000 inhabitants living in rural areas as of 2003.  In 2007, an assessment of the relationship between rural energy consumption and land degradation in the GBAO was conducted.  It found that often times with decreased energy supply, there was an increase in energy consumption at the household level.  It also concluded that as these rural mountainous regions suffer from both chronic energy scarcity and the use of local biomass as fuel at an unsustainable rate, there must be a reassessment of the energy scheme of Tajikistan(Hoeck et.al., 2007).

Research conducted in neighboring Kyrgyzstan in 2009 focussed primarily on the energy sector of that country.  It found several problems, among which were poor hydroelectric resource management and unauthorized selling of water to downstream neighboring countries.  This study further expanded on the issue of a lack of investment in national infrastructure from the collapse of the Soviet Union.  It also reviewed the implications on neighboring countries during these disaster events(Juraev, 2009).

Responses to extreme weather events, including extreme cold, were discussed in Bratislava in 2004 at a meeting of the WHO(Meusel et.al., 2004).  Recommendations for responses to extreme cold as a result of this meeting included developing better methods for preventing morbidity and mortality during extreme cold events, particularly for the homeless who are at particular risk during extreme cold.  Research has also been conducted on the growing impact of extreme weather events on populations, due primarily not to an overall increase in frequency of events, but rather to substantial population increase over a relatively short amount of time, in India.  Recommendations from this study were primarily to increase forecast skill, and the subsequent implementation of improved forecasts in disaster management(De et. al., 2005).

As the Badakhshan region began to settle into itself, research and development continued throughout and beyond the borders of Tajikistan.  Afghanistan is an area that is also prone to similar natural hazards to those found in Tajikistan.  Seismic activity is ripe in the region, and in 1998, the region of Faizabad experienced a powerful earthquake.  Adding to the difficulties for humanitarian relief of dealing with this disaster were the compound issues of poor or non-existent road networks, cross-national cooperation between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and cold weather(Barr, 1998).  This concept of the compounding of issues with regards to natural disasters was one that was relatively new to both the emergency management and humanitarian response communities, and one that would require much further research.

A similar situation was experienced in Armenia during the 1988 Spitak earthquake of comparable intensity as the one in Afghanistan.  Again, the response and recovery efforts with this disaster were compounded by other issues, particularly extreme cold weather(Kelly, 2000).  While the initial hazard was an earthquake, the extreme cold quickly became dominant.  The primary concern within a framework of emergency management immediately following a disaster is the immediate response, inclusive of, but not limited to medical treatment, food, water, and shelter.  This response phase can, however, sometimes carry over into the recovery phase.  For instance, one issue in dealing with disasters that occur during times of cool or very cold weather is that the onset of extreme cold can multiply problems for victims, particularly in terms of food and water delivery access, proper shelter, and disease prevention.  Another very important aspect of dealing with these types of situations is that issues faced by humanitarian forces in dealing with extreme cold, whether combined with other hazards or stand-alone, must be documented, both in terms of problems and solutions to these problems, otherwise it is difficult for different humanitarian groups not in contact to learn from previous experiences, such as was the case with the humanitarian efforts in Bosnia during extreme cold weather in the 20^th century.

            An examination of the potential utility of GIS and Remote Sensing in the context of the development of effective, comprehensive emergency management methods is examined by Cunha, 1998.  Again, the issue of both return migration and high environmental hazard vulnerability is discussed, specifically the occurrence of high magnitude, low frequency, and often catastrophic events in mountainous Tajikistan.  Specific hazards facing rural mountain populations are avalanche, mass wasting, and earthquakes.  The use of GIS and Remote Sensing in high mountain regions will undoubtedly prove highly valuable in years to come(Cunha, 1998). 

Another hazard facing the GBAO exists today as a result of a 1911 catastrophic earthquake-induced landslide in the Pamir Mountains which blocked the Bartang Murgab River valley and buried the village of Usoi, creating a natural dam, named the Usoi landslide dam.  A lake began building in behind this dam, rising rapidly for a number of years, initially as much as 75m/year, and flooded the village of Sarez, hence the lake is now named Sarez Lake.  Should the Usoi landslide dam fail, it is estimated over five million people would be affected downstream as far as the Aral Sea in western Uzbekistan.  An early detection and warning system has been developed but its effectiveness or reach is not known to date(Alford, 2000).  In both the case of high mountain remote sensing and cartography as well as the Sarez Lake EWS, for these measures to be effective, field social science research must be conducted to better identify and prioritize the immediate needs in terms of emergency management with respect to several hazards which can occur during extreme cold weather events.

Tajikistan currently has several international actors within the country, including the United Nations, World Food Programme, World Bank, and Red Crescent of Tajikistan.  The Rapid Emergency Assessment and Coordination Team (REACT) was formed in 2001 jointly by the United Nations and the Tajik Ministry of Emergency Situations (MoES) in an effort to create a more efficient and communication-open disaster management network within the country.  REACT has since been utilized during several events within Tajikistan, and sits alongside the Lake Sarez Risk Mitigation Project (LSRMP), Tajikistan, a branch developed to both monitor Sarez Lake and provide an early detection and warning system to the downstream residents in the event of a dam failure, both under the umbrella of the MoES(Asian Disaster Reduction Center, 2006).  Several other organizations, including the University of Central Asia, under which falls the Mountain Societies Research Centre, Focus Humanitarian Assistance, and Aga Khan Foundation all currently operate in the GBAO under the umbrella of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), which has been largely responsible for funding both basic necessities as well as development programmes in the GBAO since the end of the post-Soviet Tajik civil war.

Methodology

Data sources within Tajikistan are sporadic and often unreliable.  During the time of the Soviet Union, census and private data were maintained primarily in Stalingrad (St. Petersburg), Russian SSR.  Disclosure of these data both during Soviet and post-Soviet times has been either marginal or non-existent.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan was engulfed in a 5-year civil war, which was followed by totalitarian-style government rule.  Academic encouragement has been severely suppressed up to this point.  For this research project, in-person social science research methods will be conducted within and around Tajikistan.  There are datasets, however, maintained by several NGO agencies currently in Tajikistan. 

It is the purpose of this research to assess vulnerability to, and mitigation and preparation techniques for extreme cold weather in regards to the remote mountain communities of the GBAO; specifically this assessment will target certain sectors which previous literature on the target region has shown to be particularly vulnerable to extreme cold, namely agriculture, energy, infrastructure, education, health services, water services, and household heating.  Due to the human component of test subject for this project, IRB approval will be attained prior to conducting any field research.  This research project will take place in the form of a case study within the GBAO capital city of Khorogh.  GIS will be used to assess the representativeness of Khorogh for village communities across the GBAO.

The research will be conducted in two phases.  First, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with representatives of several sectors, namely village elders, community leaders, hospital staff, school staff, and university faculty.  A pre-determined list of questions will be asked among each sector, during each interview.  These questions will be aimed at identifying commonalities regarding techniques which can prove either useful or detrimental to mitigation and preparation for extreme cold weather.  Second, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with households within Khorogh in a similar fashion as the sector-specific phase.  Some specific targets of the questioning for both phases include references to crowding in homes, venting for interior heating, sources of fuel, electricity supply, communication between villages, the role of kitchen gardens, specific mentioning of changes since the compound disaster of 2007-08, winterization of schools, hospitals, and homes, and the practice of one warm room per household. 

It is likely that the Badakhshan region of Tajikistan has continued to experience fuel and food insecurity due to price rises and land degradation, as well as poor infrastructure and road networks.  With a lack of investment on the part of the Tajik government in critical infrastructure, it is likely there has been little change in this situation since the UN Flash Appeal of 2008.  The sudden collapse of the USSR left the Badakhshan region highly vulnerable to extreme cold weather, and its opposition to the current government has only further propagated this alienation.  Critical sectors such as healthcare and education have likely continued to suffer from lack of resources and winterization, and as such remain highly vulnerable to the effects of extreme cold.  Households probably remain very reliant upon kitchen gardens and unsustainable use of vegetation and cow dung as fuel sources, as well as practice one-room-heating, perhaps with poor ventilation.  Lastly, at the community level, sparse population, poor communication, lack of fuel, and degraded road networks likely render most rural mountain villages in the Badakhshan region isolated for much of the winter season, during which the risk of extreme cold is greatest.

References

Alford, D., and Cunha, S.F., and Ives, J.D., 2000:  Mountain Hazards and Development Assistance:  Lake Sarez, Pamir Mountains, Tajikistan.  Mountain Rsch. and Devt., 20, 12-15.

Asian Disaster Reduction Center, 2006:  Total Disaster Risk Management Good Practices 2006 Supplement, 34pp.

Barr, J, 1999:  Disaster Response with a Difference –Afghanistan June 1998.  Aust. Jnl. of EM. Mgt., 18, 2-6.

Breu, T., and Maselli, D., and Hurni, H., 2005:  Knowledge for Sustainable Development in the Tajik Pamir Mountains. Mtn. Rsch. and Devt., 25, 139-146.

Cunha, S.F.:  Hazardous Terrain:  The Need for High Mountain Cartography and Remote Sensing in the Pamir Mountains, Tajikistan CITATION INFORMATION PENDING.

Cutter, S.L., 1996:  Vulnerability to environmental hazards.  Progress in Human Geography, 20, 529-539.

De, U.S., and Dube, R.K., and Prakasa Rao, G.S., 2005:  Extreme Weather Events over India in the last 100 years.  J. Ind. Geophys. Union, 9, 173-187.

Deng, F., 1996:  UN General Assembly Human Rights Questions:  Human Rights Situations and Reports of Special Rapporteurs and Representatives.  Profiles in displacement:  Tajikistan/A/51/483, 51 pp.

Haslinger, A., and Breu, T., and Hurni, H., and Maselli, D., 2007:  Opportunities and risks in reconciling conservation and development in a post-Soviet setting:  The example of the Tajik National Park.  Intl. J. of Biodiv. Sci. & Mgt., 3, 157-169.

Hoeck, T., and Droux, R., and Breu, T., and Hurni, H., and Maselli, D., 2007:  Rural energy consumption and land degradation in a post-Soviet setting – an example from the west Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan.  Energy for Sust. Devt., 11, 48-57.

Jansky, L., and Pachova, N.I., 2006:  Towards Sustainable Land Management in Mountain Areas in Central Asia.  Glob. Envir. Rsch., 10, 99-115.

Juraev, S., 2009:  Energy Emergency in Kyrgyzstan:  Causes and Consequences., No. 5, 6 pp.

Kelly, C., 2000:  Disaster Assistance in Cold Weather Conditions:  An Overview of Issues and Options. Earthquake Hazard and Seismic Risk Reduction. Balassanian, S., and Cisternas, A., and Melkumyan, M., Kluwer Academic Publishers, 21-30.

________, 2009:  Field note from Tajikistan: Compound Disaster – A new humanitarian challenge?  Jnl. of Distr. Risk Stds., 2, 295-301.

Meusel, D., and Menne, B., and Kirch, W., and Bertollini, R., 2004:  Public Health Responses to Extreme Weather and Climate Events – A Brief Summary of the WHO Meeting on this topic in Bratislava on 9-10 February 2004. J. Public Health, 12, 371-381.

Porfiriev, B.N., and Quarantelli, E.L., 1996:  Social Science Research on Mitigation of and Recovery from Disasters and Large Scale Hazards in Russia. The University of Deleware: Rsch. Ctr. Book and Monogr. Srs, No. 29, 28 pp.

Rowe, W.C., 2009:  “Kitchen Gardens’ in Tajikistan:  The Economic and Cultural Importance of Small-Scale Private Property in a Post-Soviet Society.  Springer Science, 37, 691-703.

United Nations, 2008:  Tajikistan Compound Crises Flash Appeal 2008.  [http://ochaonline.un.org/humanitarianappeal/webpage.asp?Page=1657].  Date of Access:  15 March 2012.

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So, that is my former proposal; former, because as of last week, Khorog underwent military action from the central Tajik government in Dushanbe as a result of the killing of a Tajik government official by rebels in Khorog, the capital of the GBAO.  Aside from the obvious security threat being just 6 weeks away, I felt the results of my interviews would be skewed in such a way that it is impractical on several levels to conduct this research in GBAO at this time.  I'll look to do research there later, once the situation calms itself.  Below are a few pictures from the recent fighting over the last week.  WARNING:  GRAPHIC

Back to my project, in its current form now, I will now be conducting this project in the northwestern part of the country, amidst the Fannsky Gorry mountain range, in a rural village in close proximity to Penjikent, Tajikistan.  This is actually a very sensible area to conduct this project, as the severe winter of 2007/2008 was most extreme outside of the GBAO, so this will be a good follow-up to the Tajikistan Flash Appeal issued by the United Nations early 2008 which detailed many of the causes of, and results of the "Compound Crisis" which resulted from the conditions.

I'll post my new proposal over the next week when I finish it.  I leave for Dushanbe 4 September via Bali, Kuala Lumpur, and Almaty Kazakhstan.

.RBT

KAP/KAV

So, I thought I would take a bit of a break from thesis prep to post some update stuff on my KAP/KAV projects.  For those who don't know, KAP is Kite Aerial Photography and KAV is " " Video.  I first became fascinated with this around a year ago, more as a hobby at that point.  A few months ago, I began thinking of ways to use this for emergency management purposes.  The basic idea is that you attach a rig which holds your camera(s) to a suspension system, a common one is called a picavet cross, lace string through the picavet, and attach those two ends to your kite line once the kite is aloft a few hundred feet and stable.

This has been quite a progression over the last 3 months, as it all started with a $10 parafoil kite off ebay.  My first KAP trial was actually using a make-shift rig, which was a rolled up first-aid kit and a 3.1mp phone set to video mode, attached to a 9ft. delta kite.  The delta actually achieved nearly 3000ft. in height but the phone cut off well before that.  I then took various screenshots of the video, imported them into ArcMap, and georectified them using orthophoto imagery from the department.  Screenshots of the first rig and orthorectification results are below.

 Now here are a few photos of my new rig.  This is a servo-BEAK, auto-electric rotating and self-shuttering, from Brooks Leffler.  I've done some minor adjusting, and added an adhesive mount for my GoPro Hero2, so I can capture both stills and video at the same time.  I can also point it downward for stills and sideways for video.

 Here's a couple of photos of me pack and of my line.  That's 1000' of 200# and 2000' of 100# black braided dacron line.  Also, here's the 9ft. delta conyne I've reinforced, for the time being, with duct tape.  I've been using this in the absence of my delta, which is hanging in a tree currently, as well as trialing it against the delta for its high flying angle with fairly good pull.   I'm ordering replacements next week.  Looking at training the conynes, and possibly piloting 2-3 of them with a double-carbon fiber frame reinforced delta.

 And I will end with a couple of pictures taken with my new rig/cameras.  One is at nite, showing the Perth CBD with the Kwinana Freeway winding to the west, facing North.  The other is at Yallingdup, Western Australia, from about 1300'.

I will be continuing on the development of this project, as it will be fully functional by the first part of September when I go to Tajikistan for my thesis research.  I also have plans for several high altitude weather balloon projects, as well as FPV using RC airplanes.  Exciting things in the future!.

%RBT