Low resolution satellite imagery has been extensively used for crop monitoring and yield forecasting for over 30 years and plays an important role in a growing number of operational systems. The combination of their high temporal frequency with their extended geographical coverage generally associated with low costs per area unit makes these images a convenient choice at both national and regional scales. Several qualitative and quantitative approaches can be clearly distinguished, going from the use of low resolution satellite imagery as the main predictor of final crop yield to complex crop growth models where remote sensing-derived indicators play different roles, depending on the nature of the model and on the availability of data measured on the ground. Vegetation performance anomaly detection with low resolution images continues to be a fundamental component of early warning and drought monitoring systems at the regional scale. For applications at more detailed scales, the limitations created by the mixed nature of low resolution pixels are being progressively reduced by the higher resolution offered by new sensors, while the continuity of existing systems remains crucial for ensuring the OPEN ACCESS Remote Sens. 2013, 5 1705 availability of long time series as needed by the majority of the yield prediction methods used today.
ABSTRACT:The dependence of much of Africa on rainfed agriculture leads to a high vulnerability to fluctuations in rainfall amount. Hence, accurate monitoring of near-real time rainfall is particularly useful, for example in forewarning of possible crop shortfalls in drought-prone areas. Unfortunately, ground based observations are often inadequate. Rainfall estimates from satellite-based algorithms and numerical model outputs can fill this data gap, however rigorous assessment of such estimates is required. In this case, three satellite based products (NOAA-RFE 2.0, GPCP-1DD and TAMSAT) and two numerical model outputs (ERA-40 and ERA-Interim) have been evaluated for Uganda in East Africa using a network of 27 rain gauges. The study focuses on the years 2001-2005 and considers the main rainy season (February to June). All data sets were converted to the same temporal and spatial scales. Kriging was used for the spatial interpolation of the gauge data. All three satellite products showed similar characteristics and had a high level of skill that exceeded both model outputs. ERA-Interim had a tendency to overestimate whilst ERA-40 consistently underestimated the Ugandan rainfall.
ABSTRACT:Remote sensing (RS) data acquired by satellite have wide scope for agricultural applications owing to their synoptic and repetitive coverage. On the one hand, spectral indices deduced from visible and near-infrared RS data have been extensively used for crop characterization, biomass estimation and crop yield monitoring and forecasting. On the other hand, extensive research has been conducted using agrometerological models to estimate soil moisture to produce indicators of plant-water stress. This paper reports the development of an operational spectro-agrometeorological yield model for maize using a spectral index, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from SPOT-VEGETATION, meteorological data obtained from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) model and crop-water status indicators estimated by the Crop Specific Water Balance model (CSWB). Official figures produced by the Government of Kenya (GoK) on crop yield, area planted and production were used in the model. The statistical multiple regression linear model has been developed for six large maize-growing provinces in Kenya. The spectro-agrometerological yield model was validated by comparing the predicted province-level yields with those estimated by GoK. The performance of the NDVI and land cover weighted NDVI (CNDVI) on the yield model was tested. Using CNDVI instead of NDVI in the model reduces 26% of the unknown variance. Of the output indicators of the CSWB model, the actual evapotranspiration (ETA) performs best. CNDVI and ETA in the model explain 83% of the maize crop yield variance with a root square mean error (RMSE) of 0.3298 t/ha. Very encouraging results were obtained when the Jack-knife re-sampling technique was applied proving the validity of the forecast capability of the model (r 2 = 0.81 and RMSE= 0.359 t/ha). The optimal prediction capability of the independent variables is 20 days and 30 days for the short and long maize crop cycles respectively. The national maize production during the first crop season for the years 1998 to 2003 was estimated with a RMSE of 185 060 tons and coefficient of variation of 9 %.
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