Belgium-Gembloux

Overview

  1. Crop identification and Crop Area Estimation Cropped Land
  2. Crop Condition/Stress
  3. Soil Moisture
  4. Evapotranspiration

Project Objectives

Mapping Agricultural Areas

Operational Implementation Plan

Crop identification and Crop Area Estimation Cropped Land:

Developing a method for support crop area estimation on field for a resolution of NUTS 3.
Mapping Frequency: 2 maps / year 1 for winter wheat mapping, 1 maize mapping.

Scale

Land Use Types
  • Crop Land:
    • Spatial Resolution:
    • Temporal Resolution:

Estimating Crop Conditions

Operational Implementation Plan

Analyse of the sensitivity of SAR data to soil surface parameters (surface roughness and soil moisture) over agricultural fields, at various polarizations.

Crop Conditions
  • Biological Stress

Estimation of Biophysical Variables

Operational Implementation Plan

Frequent monitoring of wheat and maize fields are being performed in the loamy region of Belgium

Biophysical Variables
  • LAI (Leaf Area Index)

Forecasting Agricultural Variables

Operational Implementation Plan

Improve estimate of biophysical variables retrieval for crop growth monitoring; methodology development for maize and winter wheat Leaf Area Index (LAI) estimation from optical and SAR data in an operational perspective.

Agricultural Variables (large scale)
  • Soil Moisture

Site Description

Landscape TopographyThe landscape topography is flatlands and hills.
Typical Field Size3-15 ha
Climatic ZoneTropics, warm
Major Crops and Calendars

Maize (Normal):
Calendar: April - September

Spring Wheat (Normal):
Calendar: October - August

Barley (Normal):
Calendar: October - August

Potatoes (Normal):
Calendar: April - September

Soil Type & Texture
Soil Drainage Class
Irrigation InfrastructureArray
Other Site Details

In Situ Observations

Digital Hemispherical Pictures (DHP)

  • Crop Type(s):
  • Collection Protocol:

    DHP have been acquired in 2015 and 2016 on three crops (winter wheat, maize and potato) all along the growing season in a field sample spread over Belgium. Those DHP were acquired for validation purposes of the Biophysical Variables (BV) retrieved from satellite imagery (SPOT5Take5 in 2015 and S2-A in 2016) with a radiative transfer model: fCover, fAPAR and LAI.

  • Frequency:

Tillage Occurrence Detection

  • Crop Type(s):
  • Collection Protocol:

    An intensive field data collection has been set up in order to retrieve information on 535 parcels among which 107 are fully described in terms of practices occurrence for 2015. This detailed characterization of the practices occurrence has been achieved through farmers’ interviews. The condition of the parcels in February have been reported for the remaining 428 fields through field observations (bare soil, crop types, visible practices, previous crop from residues). All the fields have been manually delineated based on very high spatial resolution orthoimages. Hence, this dataset contains three main information: the polygon of the parcel, the occurrence date of the different practices (tillage, shallow ploughing…), the field condition on the 18th of February.

  • Frequency:

Crop Type

  • Crop Type(s):
  • Collection Protocol:

    An intensive field data collection has been carried out in July 2016 in order to collect crop type information in approximately 1800 fields spread over Walloon region (Southern part of Belgium).

  • Frequency:

EO Data

Optical Data Requirements

  • Approximate Start Date of Acquisition: 15/02
  • Approximate End Date of Acquisition: 01/08
  • Spatial resolution: Medium resolution (20-60m)High resolution (5-20m)
  • temporal_frequency: WeeklyBiweekly
  • Level of Expertise: Advance
  • Latency of Data Delivery: 2-5 days
  • Challanges:

    • SAR Data Requirements

  • Approximate Start Date of Acquisition: 01/03
  • Approximate End Date of Acquisition: 01/09
  • Spatial resolution: High resolution (5-20m)
  • temporal_frequency: WeeklyBiweekly
  • Frequency: XC
  • Incidence Angle: Medium
  • Polarisation:
  • Level of Processing: Level 2
  • Orbit: Any
  • Level of Expertise: Intermediate
  • Latency of Data Delivery: 2-5 days
  • Challanges:

    • Passive Microwave Data Requirements

    Thermal Data Requirements

    Results

    Documents and Files

    Links to paper

    Project Reports

    Study Team

    Team Leader

  • Name: Pierre Defourny
  • Affiliation:
  • Affiliation Webpage:
  • Position:
  • Email: pierre.defourny@uclouvain.be
  • Personal Webpage:
  • Phone number:
  • Postal Address:

    • Other Team Members

  • Name: Aline Léonard
  • Affiliation:
  • Affiliation Webpage:
  • Position:
  • Email: aline.leonard@uclouvain.be
  • Personal Webpage:
  • Role: Member

  • Name: François Waldner
  • Affiliation:
  • Affiliation Webpage:
  • Position:
  • Email: francois.waldner@uclouvain.be
  • Personal Webpage:
  • Role: Member