Consultant – Engagement of GIS Digitizers Digitization of Rice Field Boundary Polygons

Landscape Alliance
Landscape Alliance transforms science into action, unlocking the power of trees, forests and agroforestry landscapes toadvance planetary health and human well-being. Landscape Alliance is the operating name of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the International Centre for Research on Agroforestry (ICRAF). CIFOR and ICRAF are independent International Organizations and CGIAR Research Centers.

Landscape Alliance is looking for a

ICRAF, under the GCF Knuckles Project, is supporting the development and implementation of spatially enabled tools for sustainable landscape management, agricultural monitoring, and decision support. As part of the collaboration with the Agri Look platform, rice field and plot boundaries are to be demarcated as a fundamental spatial dataset for satellite-based monitoring and analysis. Accurate field polygons will enable subsequent analyses such as cropping intensity assessment, crop-condition monitoring, vegetation-index analysis, water status, seasonal agricultural monitoring, and other field-level agricultural information services.

To accelerate datasets preparation, ICRAF intends to establish a pool of GIS Digitization Assistants who can be assigned rice field digitization tasks as needed. Work will be assigned depending on project requirements and the availability and performance of individual members of the pool. Payments will be made based on the quantity of digitization completed, verified, and accepted, primarily measured by the total area of approved agricultural field polygons digitized.

Themain objective of this assignment is to engage qualified individuals("Digitizers") to develop an accurate, consistent, and quality-controlled geospatial database of rice field and plot boundaries within designated areas of the GCF Knuckles Project area.

Specificobjectives are to:

• Digitizeindividual rice fields and plot boundaries from high-resolutionsatellite imagery, basemaps, or other reference datasets designated by ICRAF.
• Producetopologically correct and spatially accurate polygon datasets.
• Follow standardized digitization protocols and attribute structures provided by ICRAF.
• Maintain consistency among multiple GIS operators working simultaneously.
• Supportrapid preparation of field-level spatial data required for integration with theAgriLook platform and related project applications.
• Ensure that all digitized outputs undergo a transparent and systematic QA/QC process prior to acceptance and payment.

The Digitizer will be responsible for the following tasks:

• Reviewreference imagery (high-resolution satellite imagery, Google earth imagery as provided) and any existing cadastral border, or AI-survey area layers suppliedby ICRAF.
• Digitizethe boundary of each distinct field as a closed polygon in the specified GISformat (e.g., Shapefile/GeoJSON/Geo Package, per project standard), following the field delineation and topology rules given in Section 5.
• Populaterequired attribute fields for each polygon (e.g., unique field ,administrative division/GN division, land-use type, source imagery date,digitizer /date).
• Whereassigned, cross-check digitized boundaries against ground/field survey points.
• Submitdigitized polygons in batches according to the agreed schedule, through thedesignated submission platform/folder structure.
• Correct and resubmit any polygons flagged as non-conforming during the quality assurance review, at no additional cost, before they are counted as accepted for payment.
• Maintaina basic digitization log (area/tile covered,…