Application of airborne imagery for mapping water stress and scheduling irrigation for vegetable crops

由于气候变化、干旱和非农业部门对水的需求不断增加而导致的水资源短缺正在威胁粮食生产。灌溉用水管理的创新需要优化加拿大水资源紧张地区的农业用水。这不仅将维持作物产量的增加，而且还将减少养分流失和土壤和水的污染。传统的灌溉水应用主要依赖于土壤水分测量，这是劳动密集型的，也很难准确地表示在大空间尺度上的土壤和作物参数的湿度。然而，基于可见光和近红外光谱区域的遥感植物胁迫指标具有空间和光谱分辨率高的优点，并考虑到作物和土壤的空间和时间变异性。拟议的研究是面向采用遥感图像，从无人机，作为一种潜在的方法，以精确地确定灌溉应用。该项目的重点是利用先进的数据和图像分析技术，提供关于植物水分状况的更精确信息，用于实时灌溉水管理，这将具有成本效益，并可供农民购买。这项创新性的研究将产生新的科学知识，利用遥感，实时数据来安排灌溉和推进变量灌溉技术。工业合作伙伴是Huron Geomatics，这是一家位于安大略南部的加拿大航空测绘公司。

Water scarcity due to climate change, drought, and rising water demands from non-agricultural sectors, isthreatening food production. Innovations in irrigation water management are required to optimize agriculturalwater use in water stressed regions of Canada. This will not only sustain increased crop yields, but will alsoreduce nutrient leaching and contamination of soil and water. Conventional irrigation water applications relymainly on soil moisture measurements, which are labor intensive, and also difficult to accurately representheterogeneity of soil and crop parameters at large spatial scales. However, remotely sensed plant stressindicators, based on the visible and near-infrared spectral regions, have the advantage of high spatial andspectral resolutions, and account for spatial and temporal variability of crops and soil. The proposed research isgeared towards the adoption of remotely sensed images, acquired from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, as apotential method to precisely determine irrigation applications. The project focuses on the use of advanceddata and image analysis techniques to provide more precise information about plant water status for real-timeirrigation water management that would be cost-effective and commercially available to farmers. Thisinnovative research would generate new scientific knowledge on the use of remotely sensed, real-time data toschedule irrigation and advance variable rate irrigation technology. The industrial partner is Huron Geomatics,a wholly owned Canadian aerial mapping company based in Southern Ontario.