NASA has a long-term commitment to using remote sensing to support agricultural monitoring. Recent advances have enabled new capabilities, but the vision from the 1970s-1980s of using satellite data for agriculture is only now being fully realized. NASA currently provides observations that help monitor crop damage from disasters, assess water usage, and guide nutrient management. Future missions like Surface Biology and Geology will further support agriculture, water resources, wildfire management and other applications.

1. 1
Bradley DOORN
Program Manager
Agriculture Applied Research Program
Earth Science Division, Science Mission
Directorate
18 July 2022

2. NASA’s Long Term Commitment to Agricultural
Monitoring
NASA/Sean Smith
Despite 40+ years,
huge potential of
remote sensing yet to
be fully realized
Satellite data use for
agriculture monitoring
dates back to early
1970s
NASA: More than just Space!

3. The Vision for Agricultural
Remote Sensing 1970s &
80s
1980 - 1984
Today we are in a new era for satellite agricultural monitoring
enabled by significant recent advances
“Always the technology of the future”
…“ Technology of today!”
Implementation was limited by availability of data and compute
capacity

4. 4
What NASA Observations do today …

5. 5
What NASA Observations do today …

6. 6
What Today’s NASA Observations Tell Us About
Tomorrow’s
Outlooks…
NOAA CPC

7. • On August 10, 2020 a severe Derecho caused
widespread damage across Iowa’s key agricultural
regions, bending and flattened crops over
approximately one-third of the state.
• NASA Harvest immediately evaluated the damage and
generated maps using satellite imagery, critical to
enabling rapid-response actions (i.e. governments &
insurance agency responses).
• Harvest researchers used the intersection of crop
damage maps and the crop type maps to provide the
overall damaged area map for each crop type.
SAR Data for Iowa Derecho Damage Analysis
Field photos of derecho impacts on corn fields in Iowa.
Fields impacted by Derecho for (a) corn and (b) soybean.
Fields Impacted by Derecho for all crop types.
M. Hosseini et al. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/23/3878/htm

8. Using Satellite Data To Help Farmers
Improve Field-Scale Nutrient
Management
https://harvest.ncsa.illinois.edu/
• Collaboration with Illinois Corn Grower
Association farmer members through
reciprocal learning & citizen science
• Precision Conservation Management
program: combining precision
technology and data management with
farm business to help farmers manage,
adopt, and adapt conservation
practices long-term and improve on-
farm decision-making
• Web-based software to guide Illinois
farmers’ decision-making for
improved nitrogen fertilizer application
• Based on the concept of Maximum
Return to Nitrogen (MRTN) with newly-
collected nitrogen fertilizer trial data in
Illinois
• Focused on advancing tools by
explicitly incorporating granular https://www.precisionconservation.org/pcm-booklet-2021/ Guan et al

9. Monitoring Water Demand and Use: OpenET
Information and data services on agricultural water needs and consumptive use for the western U.S.
Web UI
and data
services
Data review in
the field with
growers
Case studies
across the
West used to
define
requirements
Field-scale
(30m) ET
data for the
U.S.
integrated
into
Irrigation
Management
Systems
USGS

10. 10
… but What Should We Do Next?

11. Moving Forward

12. SWOT – Surface Water Ocean Topography –
Launching later this year
Supported by NASA Applied Science Program, CNES-French Investment Program

13. Credit: facebook.com/altitude12
Buxton, NC, 8 Nov. 2021
• Sea level rise
• High tide flooding (nuisance flooding)
• Coastal erosion, ecosystem deterioration
(marshes, wetlands)
• Infrastructure risks (e.g. military installations,
power plants, roads)
Coastal Impacts

14. SBG Architecture SBG Constellation Pathfinder
SBG Light
Wide-swath VSWIR
spectrometer
Sun-sync orbit (late AM)
185 km swath
16 day revisit
10 nm, 200+ bands
30 meter GSD
High SNR and radiometric
performance
~5 deg off-nadir tilt
SBG Heat
Wide-swath TIR imager and
ASI VNIR camera
Sun-sync orbit (early PM)
5+ bands TIR, 2+ bands VNIR
935 km swath, 3 day revisit
60 meter GSD
0.2K NeDT
30 km
185 km
935 km

15. Schneider et al. (2019) EOS https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EO136205 - NASA’s planned Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) observing system
Reflectance
Spectra
Visible, near- to
shortwave-infrared
Thermal
infrared

16. SBG WILL DELIVER MAJOR APPLIED SCIENCE ACROSS SECTORS
AGRICULTURE, FOOD
SECURITY AND
SURFACE WATER
MANAGEMENT
WATER QUALITY
AND COASTAL
ZONES
CONSERVATION WILDFIRE RISK
AND RECOVERY
GEOLOGY
APPLICATIONS
Mineral mapping for
exploration efforts and
reduction of
environmental hazards
Forecast aviation
hazards and support
emergency response
for volcanic eruptions
Landslide risk
assessment with
improved substrate
map land cover maps
DISASTERS AND
NATURAL
HAZARDS
Detect and track oil
spill events and
Support active fire
mapping and response
Improve mitigation of
heat wave events for
vulnerable populations
Fuel mapping (cover
type, extent, status)
for wildfire danger
management
Post fire severity
assessment and
recovery, including
prediction of areas
with higher likelihood
of debris flows
Support biodiversity
understanding and
protections by
mapping invasive
species composition,
structure, distribution;
support removal and
restoration efforts
Monitoring of
endangered species
habitat; provide alerts
of disease mortality of
impacted vegetation,
including insect
infestation
Biodiversity hotspots
and priority
conservation areas,
30 x 30 plans
Support early
detection of and
response to harmful
algal bloom formation
Protect sensitive
aquatic habitats by
monitoring/reducing
water pollutant
loading, particular in
coral reefs and other
sensitive ecosystems
Water surface
temperature and
impacts on marine
biodiversity
Improve “crop per
drop” by assessing
vegetation water
stress over irrigated
agriculture
Improve water supply
management through
better
characterization of
snow properties and
estimated reservoir
inflows
Reduce the impacts
of drought, such as
crop loss and famine,
on global scales

17. The NASA-ISRO SAR
(NISAR) Mission
will measure Earth’s changing
surfaces, and ice masses providing
biomass, natural hazards, sea level rise,
groundwater, and will support a host of
applications.

18. NASA-ISRO
Synthetic
Aperture
Radar
(NISAR)
Mission
Making Large Scale Stewardship of
Forest Resources a Reality
NISAR is designed to monitor global forest extent and quality and to
provide accurate and timely information on forest volume and products for
sustainable development and management of ecosystem goods and
services.
L-band airborne radar data collected over the Yellowstone National Park in 2003 was used
to develop maps of forest volume and fire fuel load to help with park management and fire
suppression for improving the recreational resources and revenues. (Saatchi et al. 2007).
Photos
(top-to-bottom):
Flickr:
Johan
Weiland
(CC
BY-NC
2.0),
USFS,
Flickr:
Neil
Palmer/CIAT
(CC
BY-NC
2.0),
NASA/GSFC,
Pok
RIe
(Pexels)
nisar.jpl.nasa.gov

19. Puerto Rico Workshop Offers Insights into Global
Landslide Risk | NASA Applied Sciences
19

20. Integrating Earth Data with Crop Models

21. *
*
Model Assumptions
based on current
practices/technology
CROP YIELD PREDICTIONS
(cropyieldpredictions.mp4)

22. Ecological
Forecasting
Health and Air
Quality
NASA Harvest,
Global Agriculture
Consortium
ROSES2022 A.36,
Domestic Agriculture
Consortium
Climate and
Resilience
Applications
Agriculture
Water
Resources
NASA Applied
Sciences Program
Wildfires
Capacity Building
Satellite Missions
Engagement
Disasters
New Domestic Agriculture
Consortium
award expected Nov 2022
New 5-year Plan for Global
Agriculture expected Nov 2022