Mapping Apple Orchards in the municipality of São Joaquim (Santa Catarina, Brazil) using Sentinel-2 data

Abstract

This study carried out a mapping procedure focusing on apple orchards considering the planted area, spatial location, altitude range, slope interval, and presence of anti-hail nets in the city of São Joaquim (Southern Santa Catarina Plateau, Brazil). Spectral images from the Sentinel-2 orbital platform acquired in August 2018 and an enhanced digital elevation model from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) were used. In a GIS application configured with the SIRGAS 2000,4 reference system and UTM cartographic projection, Sentinel-2 constellation images and digital elevation models from the SRTM mission and more recently refined with sensor data Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) were added. All images were resampled to a spatial resolution of 10m. The results were validated based on high spatial resolution images available from Google Earth. The results show that São Joaquim has a planted area of 7,974.80 ha, and only 12% use an anti-hail coverage system. The majority of the orchards range from one to five ha and belong to small producers. More than 50% of the orchards are between 1,200 and 1,400 m in altitude, with 45% of orchards located in areas with slopes between 8 to 20%. Interestingly, most of the orchards are concentrated in a radius of up to 20km from the urban center of São Joaquim, where industries and cooperatives are located for packaging, processing, and logistics. This study demonstrated that orbital data from Sentinel-2 can effectively quantify the distribution of apple orchards, being a viable and effective alternative for collecting information for agricultural monitoring. In this way, it enables efficient planning of apple production, such as technical assistance, marketing with producers, and production flow.