Very high resolution suborbital imaging as a tool for hydro-agricultural planning

• Grant number: 19/23946-3
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2020
• End date: August 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Agreement: CONFAP - National Council of State Research Support Foundations
• Principal Investigator: Edson Cezar Wendland
• Grantee: Edson Cezar Wendland
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Cristiano das Neves Almeida ; Guttemberg da Silva Silvino ; Hamilcar José Almeida Filgueira ; José Marcato Junior ; Lucio Andre de Castro Jorge ; Robson de Sousa Nascimento ; Valéria Peixoto Borges ; Vania da Silva Fraga ; Victor Hugo Rabelo Coelho ; Wesley Nunes Gonçalves

Abstract

The use of remotely sensed data has brought unforeseen advances to researches in water resources and agriculture. Despite the remarkable improvements of satellite sensors, more recent suborbital remote sensing technologies have provided land surface imaging with high spatio-temporal resolution. In this context, this proposal intends to bring new insights in terms of hydrologic monitoring and precision agriculture based on drone imaging. To that end, two major goals are posed: evapotranspiration estimation (EET) and early stage detection of water stress (DDH). The research activities related to EET include: validation of remote sensing-based evapotranspiration algorithms, improve EET by retrieving phenology data using drones and propose simplified EET models with high spatio-temporal resolution. Regarding DDH, we propose to test multispectral and thermal cameras to quantify soil physical factors (e.g. temperature, moisture), and derive indices of agricultural drought and water stress. In summary, a key question here is: how can we enhance our understanding of water and energy fluxes in the soil-plant-atmosphere system using drones? (AU)