Objective
GENERAL
Agriculture as a whole is developing and changing rapidly at present on both the global and European scales, and as a result of many economic, political and social factors. It is of great importance, therefore, that solid background information and knowledge should be available to decision-makers as regards the inter-relationship between weather and agriculture. Furthermore, a modern and effective agrometeorological weather service, using advanced data collection methods such as remote sensing, provides the opportunity for major savings in agricultural production; previous studies have shown that the cost/benefit-ratio can be as high as 1 to 30. In addition, environmental issues and the hazards of possible climate change enhance the need for effective collaboration in this field in Europe.
It is highly desirable in this context that agrometeorology continues to be developed and applied in the interests of sustainable agricultural production, and to this end COST action is proposed to foster appropriate joint studies.
For practical reasons, the proposed overall COST action in agrometeorology has been divided into three major actions:
A.Operational Applications of Meteorology to Agriculture, including Horticulture
B.The Integration of Data and Methods in Agroclimatology
C.The Application of Remote Sensing in Agrometeorology
The third of these is described in this Annex; the other two are the subjects of separate proposals for COST action.
Action C
The application of remote sensing in agrometeorology
1.INTRODUCTION
The improvement during the last decades in technical facilities of meteorological observation methods - especially in remote sensing - has created favourable soil for research in many applications of natural science, of which agriculture and forestry probably are the most dominant and have the greatest economic impact on society. Nevertheless, the possibility of monitoring ground surface processes by remote sensing has not been used sufficiently enough by agrometeorology in European countries up to now. The advantage to be gained by remote sensing methods is primarily in the increase of small-scale and complete areal-coverage information.
The Directorate General VI (Agriculture) of the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) has launched a large co-project with the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy to study the use of remote sensing and agrometeorological data in agriculture. The data will be used in agrometeorological and crop models to estimate the cultivation area of different agricultural crops inside EC. The JRC sub projects consist of (a) Agricultural Information Systems and (b) Environmental Mapping and Modeling. In USA the USDA/AR/Remote Sensing Institute in Weslaco, Texas is currently combining the remote sensing and agrometerorological data to be used in crop simulation models.
As the proposed COST Action is not concerned with the use of remote sensing data in biomass production and crop simulation models, it differs from the objectives of the above mentioned co-project with the JRC in Ispra.
2.OBJECTIVES OF THE ACTION
The main objectives of the Action are:
-to achieve economic benefits by major increases in agricultural productivity,
-better understanding of atmospheric processes for improved advisory service,
-to develop methods utilizing remote sensing data for predicting microclimate and plant characteristics in agriculture,
-possibility of environmental monitoring and better identification of danger zones (e.g. frost and drought damage, location of forest fires),
-to gain data by remote sensing on those areas situated far away from synoptical and climatological stations for completing the areal-coverage information of ground surface temperature and soil moisture regime.
3.THE CONTENT OF THE ACTION
The topics are to include the following:
C1.Monitoring of ground surface temperature and soil moisture regime. Monitoring of crops and forestry using NDVI and NOAA/AVHR thermal channels.
C2.Monitoring and forecasting methods for hazards such as night frost and forest fires. Integration of conventional and remote sensing data for the detection and forecast of night frost.
C3.The evaluation of different wavelengths (optical vs. microwave bands) as a source of data in agricultural remote sensing using data from satellites as well as from airborne and hand-held spectrometers.
C4.Utilizing remote sensing data as an input to dynamic simulation models (Leaf wetness duration).
C5.Exploitation of PDUS Meteosat data for an estimation of the regional evaporation at clear skies.
C6.The use of remote sensing for mapping of canopy structure.
4.TIME-TABLE
The proposed length of the agrometeorological remote sensing Action is four years. All projects will continue in parallel during this period.
5.ORGANIZATION MANAGEMENT AND RESPONSIBILITIES
A Management Committee would be assembled following the appropriate number of signatories to the Memorandum of Understanding. A chairman would be elected and tasked to draft an outline Action plan based upon the items specified in Section 3 (The content of the Action). This plan would be approved by the Management Committee and submitted to the Technical Committee for Meteorology.
The Action would include co-operation between European meteorological organizations and national agricultural and research institutes, and also between international research institutes (like, for example, the remote sensing institute JRC at Ispra in Italy).
The Action Management Committee would report annually to the COST Senior Officials through the Technical Committee for Meteorology, but would provide short verbal or written reports to each meeting of the Technical Committee. The Management Committee would meet at least twice per year.
At least one major workshop would be arranged during the first half of the Action and another one during the last year of the Action. The projects may have their specific workshops as seen appropriate. A detailed Final Report would be written based on a series of technical reports produced by projects throughout the period of the Action.
6.ECONOMIC DIMENSION OF THE ACTION
As the Action will in most countries involve several agrometeorological, meteorological and technical institutes, a broad participation is expected, probably varying from 2 to 6 man years per country. Assuming the involvement of 7-8 countries, the estimation of annual scientific personnel cost is roughly ECU 1.5-2 million (25-30 man years). Annual overhead cost is estimated to ECU 0.2-0.3 million. Thus the total cost of the four-year project is approximately ECU 7-8 million.
Current status
During the discussions about the possible content of the Action, some ambiguity emerged and it became clear that a slightly different structure would be better. As a first stage of co-operation, the activities of the participating countries were summarised and information collated about possible tools to carry out investigations of pests and diseases, estimations of yield and biomass, calculations of soil moisture and evapotranspiration, and the effecting of warnings in case of hazards.
Four main projects are in process, namely :
application of meteorological satellites to calculation and mapping of evapotranspiration extension to the forthcoming METEOSAT second generation,
evaluation of evapotranspiration calculation technique based on remote sensing in agrometeorology,
soil moisture retrieval from SAR data for agrometeorology,
agrometeorological requirements in the design of future satellite-borne instruments.
Work planned
To carry out common field experiment in the soil moisture retrieval project.
To complete a study on the evapotranspiration calculation.
To establish the future use of METEOSAT Second Generation information in the field of agrometeorology.
Agrometeorological Conference together with Action 79 and 711 in Oct 1998.
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
Data not availableCoordinator
1049 Brussels
Belgium