Advanced Satellite Radar Monitoring Agriculture Applications Aart Schrevel Niels Wielaard Dirk Hoekman Syngenta Foundation

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

Radar analysis Bare soil 22/04/2012 Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days

Radar analysis Bare soil Emergence 16/05/2012 Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days

Radar analysis Bare soil Emergence Increment 09/06/2012 Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days

Radar analysis Bare soil Emergence Increment Closure 03/07/2012 Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days

Radar analysis Bare soil Emergence Increment Closure 27/07/2012 Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days

Radar analysis Bare soil Emergence Increment Closure 20/08/2012 Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days

Radar analysis Bare soil Emergence Increment Closure 13/09/2012 Sugar beet at 25m resolution every 24 days

Radar analysis Bare soil Emergence Increment Closure Harvest 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 205Doy 213 Regenbui op dag Doy 212 TerraSAR-X surface soil moisture accuracy 3% (rmse). Soil moisture at 5m resolution every 5-11 days