C01: Detection of structural and functional properties of crop production systems with modern terrestrial as well as airborne and spaceborne remote sensing methods.

For the assessment of spatial changes in patterns and performance of cropping systems in the rural-urban interface of Bengaluru, C01 intends to use novel thermal and UAV-born hyperspectral imagery to set up an automated classification and mapping procedure for agricultural crops. Both sensor approaches will be calibrated with field measurements. Building on experiences and achievements of Phase I, C01 intends to continue with its efforts to establish remote sensing applications, which allow the identification of crop species and management intensity as well as the assessment of important crop traits (crop height, yield, quality) of agricultural crops under the soil and climate conditions of Bengaluru. With the use of imagery from a UAV-based full frame hyperspectral camera, which will be calibrated with reference data from the meanwhile well-established field experiment at UASB, we intend to gain information on a variety of crop traits at field scale level, which allows the investigation of larger areas in the transects without facing the limitations of satellite imaging (i.e. cloud covers, costs, timely availability). It is at this scale, where we will identify reasons for within-field variation of crop characteristics in farm fields together with projects A01 and A02. These results will prepare the ground for a corporation with B02 and thus the combination of our spatio-temporal land-use data with socio-economic survey data in Phase II and III.

Prof. Dr. M. Wachendorf
Dr. T. Astor
Grünlandwissenschaft und Nachwachsende Rohstoffe
Universität Kassel

Jayan Wijesingha
Doctoral Researcher

Indian partner project:
Integrating air- and space borne spectroscopy and laser scanning to assess structural and functional characteristics of crops and field margin vegetation
R.R. Nidamanuri, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Trivandrum
S. Nautiyal, Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bangalore

Assessment of structural and functional characteristics of cropping systems using advanced terrestrial, air-, and spaceborne remote sensing applications

The overarching objective of the project is to establish remote sensing applications, which allow the assessment of important structural (crop height, crop species) and functional characteristics (yield, quality) of agricultural crops and cropping systems under the soil and climate conditions of Bangalore. Specific objectives are:

1.      To calibrate various remote sensors (proximal hyperspectral radiometer; terrestrial high-resolution 3D laser scanner; full-frame hyperspectral imaging spectrometer) based on reference data (biomass, leaf area index, nitrogen and fibre concentration, N nutrition index) from the field experiment at UASB, which comprises a unique variability of most relevant crop species at different levels of water and nitrogen availability;

2.      To test the potential of sensor combinations for the assessment of crop characteristics. The main aim is to prove if terrestrial high-resolution 3D laser scanning techniques can compensate saturation effects with spectrometry at higher levels of crop leaf area index;

3.      To compare results from terrestrial hyperspectral spectrometry with space-borne multi-spectral imagery and to create hyper-spectral libraries, using an n-dimensional angle to match satellite image pixels to reference spectra, which is expected to improve the performance of space-borne spectrometry;

4.      To develop identification and classification procedures for crop species and crop management intensity, which is a prerequisite for the generation of spatio-temporal explicit crop maps of the larger area of Bangalore;

5.      To validate the accuracy of models using independent data from on-farm experimental fields located on the transects of Bangalore;

The development of models and their thorough validation, and the generation of data supporting the performance of space-borne remote sensing will allow C01 to create the methodological basis for a large-scale assessment of cropping systems. Thus, the outcomes of C01 are essential elements for the envisaged assessment of spatio-temporal dynamics of cropping systems along the rural-urban interface in Bangalore and the analysis within FOR2432.

Dr. Supriya Dayananda

Sowmyashree Marpala Venkatesh