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Dromas

Agricultural Crop Monitoring and Assessment driven by Satellites

DROMAS

Project duration: 2013 to 2015

Project manager: Lubos Kucera

The DROMAS project was implemented as a feasibility study supported by the ESA ARTES Integrated Applications Program. The study resulted in the design of services for periodic monitoring of agricultural vegetation aiming at provision of timely information about the status of agricultural crops to support decision making on local, regional and country level. The service uses the time series of satellite imagery and in-situ data collected with the help of satellite navigation.

Two types of services has been developed within the study - periodical full country monitoring of agricultural vegetation and support of farm management at agricultural parcel level.

First service is addressed to state and EU authorities that may improve the risk analysis to target field inspection for the crosscompliance control within the CAP. At the same time it will be possible to improve the monitoring and assessment of impacts of natural disasters on agricultural production (drought, flood, hail, storms, etc.). Landsat 8 and Sentinel imagery will be assesed and validated together with in-situ data within the entire vegetation season.

The farm management service will enable monitoring of agriculture crops on single agricultural parcel and comparison with historical data. The processing of time series of satellite imagery provides analysis of crop spatial variability to assess existing farming management practice.

Both services are currently prepared for pilot evaluation in the framework of following 3-year demonstration project under the IAP programme.

Gisat

was founded in 1990 as a first Czech company providing geoinformation services in the area of remote sensing. The company is oriented on complex and innovative services within the domain of remote sensing and GIS. The wide scope of services is based on partnerships with all major Earth observation satellite data providers. Gisat has extensive long-term experiences with leadership of international projects, as well as a solid knowledge of the users’ needs, especially in agriculture, environment and spatial planning, that may be met by remote sensing.

Ekotoxa

is a centre of research, expertise and consultancy providing integrated services for agriculture, forestry, rural development, environment, water management, regional development and spatial planning in the Czech Republic and abroad.

Department of Soil Science and Soil Protection, Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources of the Czech University of Life Sciences

is highly experienced in soil physics and hydropedology.

What would you name as main benefits of the project to you and your company?

"DROMAS Feasibility Study provided unique opportunity to confront the possibilities of remote sensing in the area of operational agricultural crops monitoring with the existing users’ needs on country and local level. Thanks to this it was possible to design practical services that take into account the technical limitations related to acquisition and processing of satellite imagery and, at the same time, address the requirements of the users that lacks timely full country information about the status of agricultural vegetation. The pilot implementation and validation of proposed technological solution will be subject of the subsequent demonstration project.”