Integrating Drone Technology into an Innovative Agrometeorological Methodology for the Precise and Real-Time Estimation of Crop Water Requirements

Abstract

Precision agriculture has been at the cutting edge of research during the recent decade, aiming to reduce water consumption and ensure sustainability in agriculture. The proposed methodology was based on the crop water stress index (CWSI) and was applied in Greece within the ongoing research project GreenWaterDrone. The innovative approach combines real spatial data, such as infrared canopy temperature, air temperature, air relative humidity, and thermal infrared image data, taken above the crop field using an aerial micrometeorological station (AMMS) and a thermal (IR) camera installed on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Following an initial calibration phase, where the ground micrometeorological station (GMMS) was installed in the crop, no equipment needed to be maintained in the field. Aerial and ground measurements were transferred in real time to sophisticated databases and applications over existing mobile networks for further processing and estimation of the actual water requirements of a specific crop at the field level, dynamically alerting/informing local farmers/agronomists of the irrigation necessity and additionally for potential risks concerning their fields. The supported services address farmers’, agricultural scientists’, and local stakeholders’ needs to conform to regional water management and sustainable agriculture policies. As preliminary results of this study, we present indicative original illustrations and data from applying the methodology to assess UAV functionality while aiming to evaluate and standardize all system processes.

RASPOTION—A New Global PET Dataset by Means of Remote Monthly Temperature Data and Parametric Modelling

“…The integration of the monthly PET and the cropping pattern quantifies the monthly water needs according to vegetation. Accurate PET estimates with fewer demands of meteorological data, combined with modern techniques such as the use of a drone for micro-farming data gathering [23] greatly support the food-water nexus. (3) In climatological studies and drought assessment.…”

A Comprehensive Survey of the Recent Studies with UAV for Precision Agriculture in Open Fields and Greenhouses

“…UAVs can be particularly valuable for precision agriculture applications and have strong potential to increase the efficiency of water [19], crop [20] and precision pest management [21]. They can also perform a wide variety of agricultural operations, including soil health monitoring, fertilizer application and weather analysis.…”

Advances in Evaporation and Evaporative Demand

“…The paper "Integrating Drone Technology into an Innovative Agrometeorological Methodology for the Precise and Real-Time Estimation of Crop Water Requirements" [5] by Stavros Alexandris, Emmanouil Psomiadis, Nikolaos Proutsos, Panos Philippopoulos, Ioannis Charalampopoulos, George Kakaletris, Eleni-Magda Papoutsi, Stylianos Vassilakis and Antonios Paraskevopoulos, aimed to present a new methodology and the equipment used in the assessment of crop water stress by spatial measurements of canopy temperature, air temperature, and relative humidity from sensors incorporated into an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from a pilot implementation in a potato cultivation field. The functionality of the proposed system was certified (accuracy of the UAV path and flight altitude, reliability of the aerial data acquisition system, communication stability between UAVs and ground base).…”