The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences (Dec 2023)

GRASS COVER, TREE DENSITY, AND LEAF DEVELOPMENT OF MEDITERRANEAN ORCHARDS FROM HIGH RESOLUTION DATA

  • P. Rouault,
  • D. Courault,
  • G. Pouget,
  • F. Flamain,
  • R. Lopez-Lozano,
  • C. Doussan,
  • M. Debolini,
  • M. McCabe

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-1-W2-2023-1531-2023
Journal volume & issue
Vol. XLVIII-1-W2-2023
pp. 1531 – 1536

Abstract

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The study focused on Mediterranean orchards and aimed to explore different remote sensing data (Sentinel 2 data (2016–2023), 1 Pleiades image (2022) and the extraction of Google-satellite-hybrid images (GSH,2017)) to compute key variables affecting water requirements such as tree age and density per plot, leaf development, the inter-row management. Surveys were conducted on 22 farms where accurate information on agricultural practices was collected. The results have shown that a thresholding on the NDVI Sentinel 2 in the summer period allowed the identification of young orchards with an accuracy of 98%. The analysis of temporal profiles of FAPAR allowed the identification of key phenological stages such as flowering and fruit set. Supervised classification was employed to separate grassed and non-grassed plots using three spectral bands of Sentinel 2. Classifications performed from GSH images gave more accurate results (81% well classified) compared with Sentinel 2 (79%) and Pleiades (57%) when identifying grassed plots. The methods presented in this study propose methods easily accessible based on free-to-download data, making them applicable in diverse orchard contexts.