Title: Satellite methodologies for rationalising crop water requirements in vulnerable agroecosystems

Authors: Nicolas R. Dalezios; Anna Blanta; Athanasios Loukas; Marios Spiliotopoulos; Ioannis N. Faraslis; Nicholas Dercas

Addresses: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Pedion Areos, 38334 Volos, Greece ' Department of Forestry, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece ' Faculty of Engineering, School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University Campus, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece ' Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Pedion Areos, 38334 Volos, Greece ' Department of Planning and Regional Development, University of Thessaly, Pedion Areos, 38334 Volos, Greece ' Department of Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, P.C. 11855, Athens, Greece

Abstract: Vulnerability in agriculture is influenced, among others, by extended periods of water shortage in regions exposed to droughts. In order to assess irrigation water requirements, remote sensing (RS) techniques are integrated for the estimation and monitoring of cotton crop evapotranspiration ET_c. Cotton fields in a small agricultural sub-catchment in Thessaly, Central Greece, are used as an experimental site. Daily meteorological data and weekly field data are recorded throughout seven (2004-2010) growing seasons for the computation of reference evapotranspiration ET_o, crop coefficient K_c and cotton crop ET_c based on conventional data, which are compared during the corresponding period with the satellite-based method (Landsat TM) for the estimation of cotton crop coefficient K_c and cotton crop ET_c, which also delineates its spatiotemporal variability. The methodology is applied for monitoring K_c and ET_c during growing season in the selected sub-catchment. Several error statistics are used showing very good agreement with ground-truth observations.

Keywords: crop evapotranspiration; remote sensing; vulnerable agriculture; crop water needs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSAMI.2019.101376

International Journal of Sustainable Agricultural Management and Informatics, 2019 Vol.5 No.1, pp.37 - 58

Received: 15 Oct 2018
Accepted: 23 Feb 2019
Published online: 05 Aug 2019 *

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