From the AKO website by Sgt. Doug Roles, 56th SBCT: Space technology assists Iraqi irrigation inventory project

BAGHDAD (June 30, 2009) -- Soldiers from the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team's geospatial intelligence section are playing a role in helping Iraqi leaders prepare to expand irrigation and farming throughout Iraq.

The Soldiers are teaching 20 Iraqi technicians on data processing procedures they will use to inventory the Iraqi farmland and irrigation infrastructure.

Sgt. 1st Class Marvin Nichols and Pfc. Amanda Po, both with Headquarters Company, 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, are presenting a geospatial systems workshop to Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Agriculture officials in the International Zone. The course, that began June 21, will continue throughout the week.

The workshop shows technicians how to compile data, gathered recently by field technicians, to measure canal layouts and amounts of acreage used for growing various crops.

"Basically they're looking for an accurate, fast way of processing this information," said Nichols, the brigade's senior geospatial intelligence engineer.

Nichols explained that the ministries will use the raw data to begin a cost analysis of improvement projects. Many parts of the canal system are over 30 years old and are in various states of disrepair.

The Stryker Soldiers got involved in the data-gathering effort after previously assisting the U.S. Agency for International Development/Tatweer program by preparing maps of a roughly 35-square-kilometer area, between Taji and Baghdad. That area, south of the grand canal, is the pilot area for the irrigation inventory.

The Tatweer, an Arabic word meaning development, provides support to the ministries for capacity development in public management.