an innovative earth observation service for food security codist ii – 2-5 may 2011 partners of an...

An innovative Earth Observation service for Food Security

CODIST II – 2-5 May 2011 Partners of

An innovative Earth Observation service

for Food Security

Byron Anangwe1, Erick Khamala1, Tesfaye Korme1, Hussein

Farah1

Francesco Holecz2, Massimo Barbieri2, Loris Copa2

1 RCMRD, Kenya 2 sarmap, Switzerland



Food Security – Still open questions

• How much, when, and where crop was / will be

produced?

?• In case of food shortage, how much food aid should

be provided and where?



“The present (FAO terrestrial crop) survey is very labour

intensive and entails a number of administrative, financial

and technical problems. There is concern in the user

community about the accuracy of the estimates. MoAFS of

Malawi is committed in further improving the current system

through the use of Earth Observation.”

The way forward



Global Monitoring for Food Security – Objectives

• Aim of this ESA financed project is to contribute to the

transparency of the agricultural production, i.e. to

significantly reduce uncertainty by delivering, among

others, reliable information on

• crop growth during the crop season

• cultivated area at start and during the crop season

by using Earth Observation data.

• A further key activity is the know-how transfer of this

service to key African institutions, RCMRD in primis.



How we map and monitor?

• Images are NOT influenced by

the cloud cover, e.g. we see

through the clouds.

• Particularly important during

the crop (raining) season

Optical Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)



Available and forthcoming spaceborne SAR systems

ERS-1/2 SAR ESA 1991-00/1995 25 m

JERS-1 SAR JAXA 1993-98 20 m

RADARSAT-1 CSA & MDA 1995 10-25 m

ENVISAT ASAR ESA 2001 15 m

ALOS PALSAR-1 JAXA 2006 8-15 m

TerraSAR-X-1/2 Germany 2007/2010 1-15 m

RADARSAT-2 MDA 2007 3-25 m

Cosmo-SkyMed-1/2/3/4 ASI 2007/08/10 1-15 m

RISAT-1 ISA 2011 3-15 m

Sentinel-1 A/B ESA 2012/13 20 m

SAOCOM-1 A/B CONAE 2012/13 10 m

ALOS-2 JAXA 2012/13 3-15 m

COSMO-SkyMed-5/6/7/8 ASI 2013 1-15 m



7 years design life time

Sentinel-1 A/B – Available starting from 2012/13

Global coverage every 6 days at a resolution of 20 meter

Data Policy: FREE and OPEN



Standard versus advanced productsStandard versus advanced products



Agricultural mapping and monitoring – Where we were

IGARSS 2009



120 ASAR scenes Sept-Oct-Nov

© ENVISAT ASAR data ESA

120 ASAR scenes Oct-Dec-Jan


120 ASAR scenes Jan-Feb-Mar


100,000 sqkm at 15 meter resolution every three

weeks




70 PALSAR image pairs Nov-Jan

ASAR-PALSAR-ASAR Cultivated Extent (15 m)

© A

LOS

PA

LSA

R d

ata

JA

XA

g<s >o Dso


80% accuracy



Goal

To enhance the Cultivated Extent product to Cultivated Area.

How

By integrating in the existing service the use of very high (better than 10 meter) resolution SAR data and by combining multi-temporal SAR (optionally optical) data acquired at different key periods.

What

To provide a customized processing chain (FOODSECURITYscape®)

- Which can be operated even by no-SAR specialists;- Whose products are fully compatible with known GIS

environments, such as

Where we go – FOODSECURITYscape®



FOODSECURITYscape® – Supported sensors

ALOS PALSAR-1 Fine Beam 8 m / 15 m L-band

ENVISAT ASAR Image Mode 15 m C-bandRadarsat-2 Fine Beam 10 m C-band

Cosmo-SkyMed-1/2/3/4 ScanSAR 15 m X-bandTerraSAR-X-1/2 ScanSAR 15 m X-band

Cosmo-SkyMed-1/2/3/4 StripMap 3 m X-band

Incre

ase p

en

etr

ati

on

in

to t

he v

eg

eta

tion

Optionally:

Landsat TM-5 30 m

SPOT-4/5 20 m / 10 m

Ikonos 4 m

QuickBird 2.4 m



FOODSECURITYscape® – The approach

Multi-temporal• ENVISAT ASAR or• ALOS PALSAR-1 or• Radarsat-2

or

Single-date • Landsat TM-5 or • SPOT-4/5

• Interferometric Cosmo-SkyMed StripMap or • Ikonos or • QuickBird

Multi-temporal• ENVISAT ASAR and/or• ALOS PALSAR-1 and/or• Cosmo-SkyMed SS and/or• TerraSAR-X SS and/or• Radarsat-2

Potential crop extent

prior to the start of

crop season

PotCropExtonce every n years

Potential cultivated

area at start of crop

season

PCA-SoSonce every m years

Crop growth extentCropGrowthExt

every crop season

Cultivated Area = PotCropExt PCA-SoS CropGrowthExt



FOODSECURITYscape® – The software functionalities

Basic Processing It provides the generation of geometrically and radiometrically calibrated SAR and optical data. Following functionalities are available:

- SAR IntensityAutomated generation of terrain geocoded and calibrated data for ENVISAT ASAR, ALOS PALSAR-1, Cosmo-SkyMed-1/2/3/4, TerraSAR-X-1/2 and Radarsat-2 data.

- SAR CoherenceAutomated generation of terrain geocoded coherence for Cosmo-SkyMed-1/2/3/4 StripMap data.

- OpticalAutomated generation of calibrated reflectance for TM-5, SPOT-4/5, Ikonos, and QuickBird data.



FOODSECURITYscape® – The software functionalities

Crop Product It provides the generation of the following products:

- Potential Crop Extent (prior to the start of the crop season) - PotCropExt - is derived from multi-temporal ALOS PALSAR-1 acquired during the dry season. Optionally, ENVISAT ASAR, Radarsat-2, TM-5 and SPOT-4/5 can be used.

- Potential Cultivated Area at Start of Season - PCA-SOS - is derived from interferometric Cosmo-SkyMed-1/2/3/4 data acquired around planting time. Optionally, Ikonos and QuickBird data can be used.

- Crop Growth Extent - CropGrowthExt - is derived from multi-temporal SAR data acquired during the crop season from one or more sensors. Optical data are not considered, due to the persistent cloud coverage during this period.

- Cultivated Area - CuArea - is derived by combining the products PotCropExt, PCA-SOS, CropGrowthExt.



FOODSECURITYscape® – The interface



Example Malawi 2010/11 – Data set

Potential Crop Extent

ALOS PALSAR-1 (15m) - July-Sept 2008,2009,2010 SPOT-4 (20m) - October 2010

Potential Cultivated Area at SOS

Interferometric Cosmo-SkyMed StripMap (3m) December 2010



Example Malawi 2010/11 – Data set

Crop Growth Extent

Multi-temporal ENVISAT ASAR (15m)October 2010-April 2011

Crop Growth Extent

Multi-temporal ALOS PALSAR-1 (8m)October 2010-April 2011

Crop Growth Extent

Multi-temporal Cosmo-SkyMed (3m) December 2010-February 2011



Potential Crop Extent – Malawi 2010/11

Bare soil extent

during dry season

based on multi-temporal

ALOS PALSAR-1 data (15m)



Potential Cultivated Area at SoS – Malawi 2010/11

Potential Crop Area 1



Based on

interferometric

Cosmo-SkyMed

StripMap data (3m)

acquired in December

2010.



Potential Cultivated Area at SoS – Malawi 2010/11




including boundaries of

ensemble of fields

Based on

interferometric

Cosmo-SkyMed

StripMap data (3m)

acquired in December

2010.



Crop Growth Extent – Malawi 2010/11

Crop Growth Extent

(15m) during the crop

season based on

multi-temporal

- ENVISAT ASAR

- ALOS PALSAR-1

- Cosmo-SkyMed



Crop Growth Extent – Malawi 2010/11

3 sensors

2 sensors

1 sensor

Sensors occurrence



Potential Crop Extent Crop Growth Extent – Malawi 2010/11

Crop Growth Extent

after inclusion of Potential

Crop Extent



Cultivated Area – Malawi 2010/11




Polygons in green

areas represent the

cultivated areas



Next steps

• Validation of the products generated during the crop

seasons 2010/11 in Malawi and 2011 in Kenya.

• Capacity building of an RCMRD technician at sarmap

premises during two months.

• Capacity building of RCMRD technicians and RCMRD

member states technicians at RCMRD premises.

• Improvements and extensions of FOODSECURITYscape®

based on users feedback and new sensors.

• Installation of FOODSECURITYscape® at RCMRD premises.



Conclusions

• The service is based on data redundancy and complementarity, hence enabling to obtain reliable products, generated in an almost fully automated way.

• While Potential Crop Extent and Potential Cultivated Area at start of crop season are both provided every n years (depending on the crop situation and evolution) – hence reducing the data amount and related data cost – the Crop Growth Extent product is exclusively intended for monitoring the on-going crop season.

• Based on yearly data sets and corresponding products, Cultivated Area Changes can be generated. This functionality will be included in the next version of FOODSECURITYscape®.

• FOODSECURITYscape® will be upgraded to support Sentinel-1 A/B and Sentinel-2 as soon as data acquired by these sensors will be available. Note that the use of Sentinel-1 A/B data will enable a weekly monitoring of the crop growth.



Thank you for your Attention

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