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Monitoring Agriculture with Remote Sensing (MARS)A focus on agricultural user requirements

Guido LemoineEuropean Commission, JRC, Ispra, Italy

Overview

Coordinated with the previous 2 presentations (GEOGLAM, DG AGRI)

Technology context: what is the state-of-the-art in 2028+?

Focus on crop area and yield monitoring

Europe, Global (commodity crop production)

Countries-at-risk (Food (In-)Security)

“Must have”, “Nice to have” and feasibility

2

Technology context

Dilemma: 2028+ user requirements while operational Sentinel use in early phase.

How will “full, free and open” access propagate to other mission operators (e.g. ALOS, SAOCOM, RadarSat, CBERS, etc.)?

Do we assume today's technology in space in 2028+, or can we assume, at least, incremental improvement?

Does it always have to be a Sentinel box?

Which of the [other] space sensor technologies are mature enough for operational deployment in 2028+? Where can we check this?

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Technology context (2)

Computing will have breached the Exabyte scale.

How successful will “data stream aggregators” (DSA) be in collating essential (agricultural) data streams?

Will DSA facilitate market-entry of other space actors, other procurement schemes?

Other, related, developments: open access to reference data, IoT sensor networks, progress in precision farming, general agricultural market situation, etc.

4

Crop area and yield monitoring

Scaling up from low resolution to high resolution: multi-year consistency of S1 and S2 area time series to be proven, added value of S3 (esp. thermal bands)

Lower practical size limit around 1 ha parcel scale (with 10 m resolution)

Intra-crop differentiation of yield factors (at parcel level): cross-analysis with in-situ (precision agriculture) outputs

Will we succeed in [better] responding to farm + food actors requirements?

Successful models for integration of higher resolution sensors (parcel reference, high value crops, PA)?

5

Food (in-)security analysis

Current S1 and S2 suitable to follow land conversion, and structural change in agricultural land use (rangeland ⇒ cropland, small ⇒large)

Smallholder cultivation <<1 ha parcel scale, requires VHR to delineate and identify

VHR (airborne+spaceborne) essential to support land tenure

Likely to have most direct gain in linking production (potential) to market access (storage and transport, food waste, urban markets)

Knowledge of environmental stress factors essential (drought, disease, natural hazards)

Essential components include sensor networks, improved (open) reference data, in-situ and local capacities

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Land conversion in Ethiopia, from smallholdings to large scale production (S2A of 14

Sep 2015 (left), S1A autumn 2015 composite (right)

“Must have”

Next-generation S1 and S2 (beyond C/D): continuity, with increased spatial resolution (5 m), increased temporal resolution (S2, 4 instead of 2 ⇒ 2/3 day revisit), same swath.

Next generation S3: increased spatial resolution (100 m), daily morning and afternoon

Alternative: multi-band thermal infrared (50-100 m), daily mor/aft.

L-band SAR, 10 m, dual pol

8

“Nice to have”

Hyper-spectral, 10-30 m, 5 day repeat (like S2)

Soil moisture missions: passive/active microwave 100 - 1000 m resolution, several passes per day

Geo-stationary EO at high resolution (hourly, 10-100 m, XS, pref. including TIR)

Terrestrial network of rain radars (over agricultural production zones)

Denser network of meteo-observations (over agricultural production zones, countries at risk)

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IIASA Hybrid Cropland

and Global field size

composite

Feasibility

Assuming “Moore's Law in Space”, which are realistic requests? What is the cutoff date to consider other EO technologies?

Agriculture, while global, is spatially constrained (and di/trichotomous) and seasonal

Ideal frequency of observations synchronised with crop phenology

Alternative data procurement from third party missions (e.g. VHR, “every day, everywhere” sensors) likely well before 2028

DSA essential in determining success of value adding to data streams, including support to expanded use base.

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Way forward

More time needed to understand full Sentinel impact (consistency, quality, application take up).

Important to follow developments with open access to other [complimentary] missions.

Prioritize by most-feasible [novel] EO technology.

Essential to grow wider community of users, diversity across many agricultural users.

We need a continuous community role in user requirement evolution, not a “one-off”!

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Thank you!

guido.lemoine@jrc.ec.europa.eu