Advanced Satellite Radar Monitoring Agriculture Applications
Aart SchrevelNiels WielaardDirk Hoekman
Syngenta Foundation 11.02.2014
New era in agricultural crop monitoring using (radar) satellites:
• Better information : new satellites with improved information content
• More frequent information : new radar satellites that can see through clouds and haze enabling reliable very frequent ‘time-series’ observations at high detail (every 2-6 days)
• Larger area coverage at high detail : new semi-automated processing techniques area available for analysis and efficient large datasets
• More affordable : 20-30m data available for free
Reliable radar observations can be made every 2-6 days:
• 1- 5m spatial resolution radar : TerraSAR-X/PAZ/CosmoSkymed• 20-30m spatial resolution radar : ASAR, Sentinel-1 Optical: Landsat 8, Sentinel-2
New era in satellite monitoring
What can be monitored using (radar) satellites:
• Which areas are flooded, at what times and for how long?
• Which crop types and which crop varieties are planted where, how many hectares? Based on this, how many hectares of organic crops are planted?
• When and where are soil prepared, what are different growth stages and biomass increase at different times?
• What is the timing and extent of crop damages and losses such as caused by storm damage, droughts and floods?
Satellite monitoring can reduce (or replace) costly and time-consuming ground data collection. It can improve inaccurate statistics.
Historical data availability varies per location
New era in satellite monitoring
Reliable frequent observations: improved identification of crop type and growth stages based on temporal differences
Radar time-series monitoring
Typical optical
satellite image
Cloud free
radar image
Cloud free
radar image
Radar analysis
Bare soil
22/04/2012
Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days
Radar analysis
Bare soilEmergence
16/05/2012
Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days
Radar analysis
Bare soilEmergenceIncrement
09/06/2012
Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days
Radar analysis
Bare soilEmergenceIncrementClosure
03/07/2012
Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days
Radar analysis
Bare soilEmergenceIncrementClosure
27/07/2012
Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days
Radar analysis
Bare soilEmergenceIncrementClosure
20/08/2012
Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days
Radar analysis
Bare soilEmergenceIncrementClosure
13/09/2012
Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days
Radar analysis
Bare soilEmergenceIncrementClosureHarvest
07/10/2012
Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days
Rice at 5m resolution every 5-11 days
5m detail suitable for monitoring of small farms
Sharp results: Multi-temporal filtering
Rice at 5m resolution every 5-11 days
Doy 205 Doy 213
Regenbui op dag Doy 212
TerraSAR-X surface soil moisture accuracy 3% (rmse).
Soil moisture at 5m resolution every 5-11 days
