Can we Monitor Height of Native Grasslands in Uruguay with Earth Observation?

Abstract

In countries where livestock production based on native grasslands is an important economic activity, information on structural characteristics of forage is essential to support national policies and decisions at the farm level. Remote sensing is a good option for quantifying large areas in a relative short time, with low cost and with the possibility of analyzing annual evolution. This work aims at contributing to improve grazing management, by evaluating the ability of remote sensing information to estimate forage height, as an estimator of available biomass. Field data (forage height) of 20 commercial paddocks under grazing conditions (322 samples), and their relation to MODIS data (FPAR, LAI, MIR, NIR, Red, NDVI and EVI) were analyzed. Correlations between remote sensing information and field measurements were low, probably due to the extremely large variability found within each paddock for field observations (CV: Around 75%) and much lower when considering satellite information (MODIS: CV: 4%–6% and Landsat:CV: 12%). Despite this, the red band showed some potential (with significant correlation coefficient values in 41% of the paddocks) and justifies further exploration. Additional work is needed to find a remote sensing method that can be used to monitor grasslands height.

On the Joint Exploitation of Optical and Sar Satellite Imagery for Grassland Monitoring

“…It prevents meeting the requirements of dense surveillance of grasslands (Kolecka et al, 2018). Most monitoring approaches integrating optical satellite data are based on the exploitation of derived vegetation indices (Ali et al, 2017, Pasqualotto et al, 2019, Tiscornia et al, 2019. Among these indices, NDVI is still widely used for its simplicity and ease of interpretation (Stendardi et al, 2019, Solano-Correa et al, 2020, Belgiu, Csillik, 2018.…”

Los agroecosistemas ganaderos importante hábitat para las aves: análisis cualitativo del efecto del manejo productivo en especies prioritarias para la conservación en Uruguay

“…Esto es lograble con la aplicación de tecnología de procesos disponible, con bajos costos y resulta además en aumento de la productividad ganadera (Aguerre y Albicette, 2018). En la evaluación de éste proceso, denominado intensificación ecológica, se detectó una gran heterogeneidad en la estructura y esta heterogeneidad era aún mayor a medida que aumentaba la altura media del tapiz, la cual se produjo sistemáticamente en la medida que el manejo de los establecimientos iba mejorando (Aguerre y Albicette, 2018;Tiscornia et al, 2019). Este efecto es el aumento de la doble y triple estructura lo que implica el aumento de matas, parches de pasto alto y arbustos, lo cual probablemente es el efecto más importante para este grupo de aves.…”

Penerapan Teknologi Pengindraan Jauh untuk Identifikasi Padang Penggembalaan Alam di Kecamatan Pandawai, Kabupaten Sumba Timur

“…Semenjak teknologi pengindraan jauh dan sistem informasi geografis dikembangkan, metode pengukuran konvensional seperti ini sudah jarang digunakan. Pengindraan jauh merupakan ilmu dan seni dalam memperoleh informasi tentang objek, wilayah, atau gejala dengan cara menganalisa data yang diperoleh dengan menggunakan alat tanpa kontak langsung terhadap objek, wilayah, atau gejala yang dikaji (Lilesand dan Kiefer, 2007;Tiscornia et al, 2019 (Newman, 2003;Ahmad, 2012).…”