Satfarm-Services

The Satfarm-Services project aims to improve our climate change adaption capabilities in agriculture. The usage of satellite born agricultural indices frequent information on crop vigor, damage and stress and information on soil conditions. The possibilities for potential usages are numerous and are constantly expanded by researchers. However, the access, and the handling of this data is complex and usually not possible for laymen.

To make this easier, we developed a tool that enables the users to explore common vegetation indices on a field-by-field basis and on a regional level. This enables the users to compare the performance of their field with others. Various filters of field qualities (crop, soil type) and of agricultural management practices (crop type, pre-crop, cover-crop usage and sowing dates) are available to automatically choose suitable fields to compare without technical knowledge. This enables the people who know their crops and soils best, the farmers, to explore this rich data pool. Their experiences coupled with the influx of data can only improve their decision-making process and find new use cases of satellite data in agriculture in general.

The algorithms to detect the data behind some of these filters was developed in the context of this project and adds to the usability of the tool.

The other type of user besides farmers, that we envision, are policy makers. Climate-smart agricultural practices are techniques that help crops endure “extreme” weather events, such as droughts. Practices such as crop rotations, early or late sowing and cover crops can improve soil quality and reduce erosion.

The project aims to enhance the decision-making capabilities of policy makers. Knowing the extent of adoption and location of these more resilient farms would enable them to produce policies that facilitate and promote the adoption of these practices.

With the Satfarm-explorer web-app users without any technical knowledge can explore satellite born data on a field-by-field basis and regionally. This allows for a much wider audience to be able to access this type of information. The platform is built upon state-of-the-art databases and computing hosted by Sentinel Hub, and specifically designed for the usage in agriculture. This greatly speeds up the browsing and analysis of data.

In addition, the development of new algorithms to detect climate smart practices helps monitoring their usage and their impact on a country wide scale.