scholarly journals Evolution and application of digital technologies to predict crop type and crop phenology in agriculture

Author(s):  
A B Potgieter ◽  
Yan Zhao ◽  
Pablo J Zarco-Tejada ◽  
Karine Chenu ◽  
Yifan Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract The downside risk of crop production affects the entire supply chain of the agricultural industry nationally and globally. This also has a profound impact on food security, and thus livelihoods, in many parts of the world. The advent of high temporal, spatial and spectral resolution remote sensing platforms, specifically during the last five years, and the advancement in software pipelines and cloud computing have resulted in the collating, analysing and application of “BIG DATA” systems, especially in agriculture. Furthermore, the application of traditional and novel computational and machine learning approaches is assisting in resolving complex interactions, to reveal components of eco-physiological systems that were previously deemed either “too difficult” to solve or “unseen”. In this review, digital technologies encompass mathematical, computational, proximal- and remote sensing technologies. Here, we review the current state of digital technologies and their application in broad acre cropping systems globally and in Australia. More specifically, we discuss the advances in (i) remote sensing platforms, (ii) machine learning approaches to discriminate between crops, and (iii) the prediction of crop phenological stages from both sensing and crop simulation systems for major Australian winter crops. An integrated solution is proposed to allow accurate development, validation and scalability of predictive tools for crop phenology mapping at within-field scales, across extensive cropping areas.

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (18) ◽  
pp. 3929 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grigorios Tsagkatakis ◽  
Anastasia Aidini ◽  
Konstantina Fotiadou ◽  
Michalis Giannopoulos ◽  
Anastasia Pentari ◽  
...  

Deep Learning, and Deep Neural Networks in particular, have established themselves as the new norm in signal and data processing, achieving state-of-the-art performance in image, audio, and natural language understanding. In remote sensing, a large body of research has been devoted to the application of deep learning for typical supervised learning tasks such as classification. Less yet equally important effort has also been allocated to addressing the challenges associated with the enhancement of low-quality observations from remote sensing platforms. Addressing such channels is of paramount importance, both in itself, since high-altitude imaging, environmental conditions, and imaging systems trade-offs lead to low-quality observation, as well as to facilitate subsequent analysis, such as classification and detection. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of deep-learning methods for the enhancement of remote sensing observations, focusing on critical tasks including single and multi-band super-resolution, denoising, restoration, pan-sharpening, and fusion, among others. In addition to the detailed analysis and comparison of recently presented approaches, different research avenues which could be explored in the future are also discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1586
Author(s):  
Leonardo F. Arias-Rodriguez ◽  
Zheng Duan ◽  
Rodrigo Sepúlveda ◽  
Sergio I. Martinez-Martinez ◽  
Markus Disse

Remote-sensing-based machine learning approaches for water quality parameters estimation, Secchi Disk Depth (SDD) and Turbidity, were developed for the Valle de Bravo reservoir in central Mexico. This waterbody is a multipurpose reservoir, which provides drinking water to the metropolitan area of Mexico City. To reveal the water quality status of inland waters in the last decade, evaluation of MERIS imagery is a substantial approach. This study incorporated in-situ collected measurements across the reservoir and remote sensing reflectance data from the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS). Machine learning approaches with varying complexities were tested, and the optimal model for SDD and Turbidity was determined. Cross-validation demonstrated that the satellite-based estimates are consistent with the in-situ measurements for both SDD and Turbidity, with R2 values of 0.81 to 0.86 and RMSE of 0.15 m and 0.95 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU). The best model was applied to time series of MERIS images to analyze the spatial and temporal variations of the reservoir’s water quality from 2002 to 2012. Derived analysis revealed yearly patterns caused by dry and rainy seasons and several disruptions were identified. The reservoir varied from trophic to intermittent hypertrophic status, while SDD ranged from 0–1.93 m and Turbidity up to 23.70 NTU. Results suggest the effects of drought events in the years 2006 and 2009 on water quality were correlated with water quality detriment. The water quality displayed slow recovery through 2011–2012. This study demonstrates the usefulness of satellite observations for supporting inland water quality monitoring and water management in this region.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Pizzolla ◽  
Silvano Fortunato Dal Sasso ◽  
Ruodan Zhuang ◽  
Alonso Pizarro ◽  
Salvatore Manfreda

<p>Soil moisture (SM) is an essential variable in the earth system as it influences water, energy and, carbon fluxes between the land surface and the atmosphere. The SM spatio-temporal variability requires detailed analyses, high-definition optics and fast computing approaches for near real-time SM estimation at different spatial scales. Remote Sensing-based Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) represents the actual solution providing low-cost approaches to meet the requirements of spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions [1; 3; 4]. In this context, a proper land use classification is crucial in order to discriminate the behaviors of vegetation and bare soil in such high-resolution imagery. Therefore, high-resolution UASs-based imagery requires a specific images classification approach also considering the illumination conditions. In this work, the land use classification was carried out using a methodology based on a combined machine learning approaches: k-means clustering algorithm for removing shadow pixels from UASs images and, binary classifier for vegetation filtering. This approach led to identifying the bare soil on which SM estimation was computed using the Apparent Thermal Inertia (ATI) method [2]. The estimated SM values were compared with field measurements obtaining a good correlation (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.80). The accuracy of the results shows good reliability of the procedure and allows extending the use of UASs also in unclassified areas and ungauged basins, where the monitoring of the SM is very complex.</p><p><strong>References</strong></p><p>[1] Manfreda, S., McCabe, M.F., Miller, P.E., Lucas, R., Pajuelo Madrigal, V., Mallinis, G., Ben Dor, E., Helman, D., Estes, L., Ciraolo, G., et al. On the Use of Unmanned Aerial Systems for Environmental Monitoring, Remote Sensing, 2018, 10, 641.</p><p>[2] Minacapilli, M., Cammalleri, C., Ciraolo, G., D’Asaro, F., Iovino, M., and Maltese, A. Thermal Inertia Modeling for Soil Surface Water Content Estimation: A Laboratory Experiment. Soil. Sci. Soc. Amer. J. 2012, vol.76, n.1, pp. 92–100</p><p>[3] Paruta, A., P. Nasta, G. Ciraolo, F. Capodici, S. Manfreda, N. Romano, E. Bendor, Y. Zeng, A. Maltese, S. F. Dal Sasso and R. Zhuang, A geostatistical approach to map near-surface soil moisture through hyper-spatial resolution thermal inertia, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2020.</p><p>[4] Petropoulos, G.P., A. Maltese, T. N. Carlson, G. Provenzano, A. Pavlides, G. Ciraolo, D. Hristopulos, F. Capodici, C. Chalkias, G. Dardanelli, S. Manfreda, Exploring the use of UAVs with the simplified “triangle” technique for Soil Water Content and Evaporative Fraction retrievals in a Mediterranean setting, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 2020.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 3292
Author(s):  
Sara Akodad ◽  
Lionel Bombrun ◽  
Junshi Xia ◽  
Yannick Berthoumieu ◽  
Christian Germain

Remote sensing image scene classification, which consists of labeling remote sensing images with a set of categories based on their content, has received remarkable attention for many applications such as land use mapping. Standard approaches are based on the multi-layer representation of first-order convolutional neural network (CNN) features. However, second-order CNNs have recently been shown to outperform traditional first-order CNNs for many computer vision tasks. Hence, the aim of this paper is to show the use of second-order statistics of CNN features for remote sensing scene classification. This takes the form of covariance matrices computed locally or globally on the output of a CNN. However, these datapoints do not lie in an Euclidean space but a Riemannian manifold. To manipulate them, Euclidean tools are not adapted. Other metrics should be considered such as the log-Euclidean one. This consists of projecting the set of covariance matrices on a tangent space defined at a reference point. In this tangent plane, which is a vector space, conventional machine learning algorithms can be considered, such as the Fisher vector encoding or SVM classifier. Based on this log-Euclidean framework, we propose a novel transfer learning approach composed of two hybrid architectures based on covariance pooling of CNN features, the first is local and the second is global. They rely on the extraction of features from models pre-trained on the ImageNet dataset processed with some machine learning algorithms. The first hybrid architecture consists of an ensemble learning approach with the log-Euclidean Fisher vector encoding of region covariance matrices computed locally on the first layers of a CNN. The second one concerns an ensemble learning approach based on the covariance pooling of CNN features extracted globally from the deepest layers. These two ensemble learning approaches are then combined together based on the strategy of the most diverse ensembles. For validation and comparison purposes, the proposed approach is tested on various challenging remote sensing datasets. Experimental results exhibit a significant gain of approximately 2% in overall accuracy for the proposed approach compared to a similar state-of-the-art method based on covariance pooling of CNN features (on the UC Merced dataset).


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8600
Author(s):  
Meenakshi Sharma ◽  
Prashant Kaushik ◽  
Aakash Chawade

Along with essential nutrients and trace elements, vegetables provide raw materials for the food processing industry. Despite this, plant diseases and unfavorable weather patterns continue to threaten the delicate balance between vegetable production and consumption. It is critical to utilize machine learning (ML) in this setting because it provides context for decision-making related to breeding goals. Cutting-edge technologies for crop genome sequencing and phenotyping, combined with advances in computer science, are currently fueling a revolution in vegetable science and technology. Additionally, various ML techniques such as prediction, classification, and clustering are frequently used to forecast vegetable crop production in the field. In the vegetable seed industry, machine learning algorithms are used to assess seed quality before germination and have the potential to improve vegetable production with desired features significantly; whereas, in plant disease detection and management, the ML approaches can improve decision-support systems that assist in converting massive amounts of data into valuable recommendations. On similar lines, in vegetable breeding, ML approaches are helpful in predicting treatment results, such as what will happen if a gene is silenced. Furthermore, ML approaches can be a saviour to insufficient coverage and noisy data generated using various omics platforms. This article examines ML models in the field of vegetable sciences, which encompasses breeding, biotechnology, and genome sequencing.


Author(s):  
R. Roscher ◽  
B. Bohn ◽  
M. F. Duarte ◽  
J. Garcke

Abstract. For some time now, machine learning methods have been indispensable in many application areas. Especially with the recent development of efficient neural networks, these methods are increasingly used in the sciences to obtain scientific outcomes from observational or simulated data. Besides a high accuracy, a desired goal is to learn explainable models. In order to reach this goal and obtain explanation, knowledge from the respective domain is necessary, which can be integrated into the model or applied post-hoc. We discuss explainable machine learning approaches which are used to tackle common challenges in the bio- and geosciences, such as limited amount of labeled data or the provision of reliable and scientific consistent results. We show that recent advances in machine learning to enhance transparency, interpretability, and explainability are helpful in overcoming these challenges.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 16398-16421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iftikhar Ali ◽  
Felix Greifeneder ◽  
Jelena Stamenkovic ◽  
Maxim Neumann ◽  
Claudia Notarnicola

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Wang ◽  
Ye Ni ◽  
Xutao Li ◽  
Yunming Ye

Wildfires are a serious disaster, which often cause severe damages to forests and plants. Without an early detection and suitable control action, a small wildfire could grow into a big and serious one. The problem is especially fatal at night, as firefighters in general miss the chance to detect the wildfires in the very first few hours. Low-light satellites, which take pictures at night, offer an opportunity to detect night fire timely. However, previous studies identify night fires based on threshold methods or conventional machine learning approaches, which are not robust and accurate enough. In this paper, we develop a new deep learning approach, which determines night fire locations by a pixel-level classification on low-light remote sensing image. Experimental results on VIIRS data demonstrate the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed method, which outperforms conventional threshold and machine learning approaches.


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