Ploughings and irrigations detections
A time series of Formosat images was acquired in Morocco, over the CESBIO/IRD site located in Tensift valley. Images were acquired from November 2005 to November 2006.
In this region, the wheat sowing coincides with the ploughings. These ploughings are clearly visible on the Formosat time-series, thus enabling to map the sowings dates and the repetitivity of acquisitions enables to obtain a good datation precision.
In complement to Formosat, radar instruments give an information about the ground roughness. By combining the information from ASAR instrument on ENVISAT, to those from Formosat, Hadria and Duchemin, 2007, obtained the following map (in red, the plots not ploughed before decembrer 10th, in green the plots already ploughed, and in blue, the plots already sowed, the hatched area correspond to plots that are undergoing a change (sowing, irrigation) during the periode between december 10th and 16th).
R. Hadria, B. Duchemin, F. Baup, T.Le Toan, A. Bouvet, G. Dedieu, M. Le Page
Combined use of optical and radar satellite data for monitoring agricultural practices:
case study in Central Morocco, submitted to Geoderma, a global journal of soil science.
A small riddle:
White spots suddenly appear on the images. Where do they come from?
- The satellite caught a strange disease
- Parasites muddle the signal
- An invasion of big white elephants
- I don't know
