Recipient Organization
Applied GeoSolutions, LLC
87 Packers Falls Road
Durham,NH 03824
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Agricultural row crops occupy over 200 m acres of land in the US. Decisions regarding the implementation of tillage practices in these agricultural areas have a significant effect on other environmental outcomes, including soil erosion, water quality, and carbon sequestration. In addition, the effects of tillage practices can vary due to soil type and topographic conditions. There is currently no systematic and cost-effective method for documenting tillage practices, or the resulting effects, over a large region. We believe our tillage practice information system will be of interest to several types of organizations. First, government agencies such as UDSA are tasked with collecting data and information on environmental and agricultural practices. Second, a global market has developed around trading of carbon emissions and carbon sequestration, and watershed level marketplaces trade water quality. When trading the right to emit a pollutant or the service of sequestration, stakeholders have an interest in verifying the service is being provided. The tillage practice information system can be a critical tool for the credit verifier who is responsible for making the trading practice transparent. Currently, tillage practice is mapped via drive-by surveys or site visits, which are expensive and extremely time consuming. Because of this high cost, it is impractical to gather complete tillage practice information for large geographic areas. Third, groups such as CTIC would have interest in maps of tillage practice for watershed water quality estimates and as model inputs.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
We will evaluate the feasibility of using AWiFS observations for operational tillage practice monitoring that will systematically provide information about the spatial and temporal dynamics of tillage practices through a web-GIS environment. Our initial focus will be on agricultural test areas in the Maumee Bay Watershed within the western basin of Lake Erie and the Little River Experimental Watershed in Georgia, with the ultimate goal of providing a continental scale system. At the successful completion of the Phase 1 activities, we will be able to produce accurate tillage maps over the agriculturally diverse regions of the Midwest and southeast US. Technical Objective 1: Demonstrate the technical feasibility of mapping tillage practices using AWiFS remote sensing data. Technical Objective 2: Develop a protocol for systematic processing and validation of tillage products. Technical Objective 3: Deploy a prototype web-based data visualization and delivery system.
Project Methods
Our three Technical Objectives will be met through the completion of three parallel tasks. Task 1. Demonstrate the technical feasibility of mapping tillage practices using AWiFS multi-spectral remote sensing data. We will use the Spectral Angle Mapper technique to classify each 56 m AWiFS pixel into one of three tillage practice classes or a non-agriculture class. As we repeat mapping in a particular region, we will store typical SAM end-member class signatures in a database, allowing us to accurately extrapolate estimates of tillage practice to times when ground data are not available. We will guide this classification using ground observations of tillage class and from Landat maps of tillage practice validated with the ground data. These ground observations are from "windshield surveys" collected with location data in the Maumee River Watershed and in the Little River Experimental Watershed. When classifying the maps, we will withhold 30% of our ground observations for accuracy assessment. We will compare our AWiFS maps to the maps produced using Landsat 5 data. AWiFS data has a single shortwave infrared band and a lower spatial resolution. We will estimate the change in mapping accuracy due to the switch in sensors in the 2006 MRW region and the 2007 LREW region. We recognize that there may be a reduction in accuracy compared to the higher spatial resolution Landsat data. This reduction in accuracy will likely be compensated for with an increase in temporal resolutions (Landsat 16-day repeat overpass vs. AWiFS 5-day repeat overpass). Task 2. Develop a protocol for systematic processing and validation of tillage products. Our Phase 2 goal will be to implement tillage practice information system that produces accurate maps in a timely fashion for a large geographic region. Therefore, our Phase 1 activities will include the development of a protocol for systematic processing and validation of large data sets. The implementation of large data volume processing and validation will be part of Phase 2 activities. Processing and validating large volumes of data will require a data management system with four subcomponents, including an automated data acquisition system, a data pre-processing system, the tillage practice identification algorithm, and a validation system. Task 3. Deploy a prototype web-based data visualization and delivery system. We will deploy existing open source technology developed at Applied Geosolutions, LLC to create a web-mapping prototype for delivering the tillage practice maps and host it on the web-servers at Applied Geosolutions. This prototype web portal will demonstrate the feasibility of delivering these data. The site will not have the full analysis features functioning after this 8 month project cycle, but will instead act as a first iteration or a functioning prototype that demonstrates the feasibility of our ability to distribute spatial data over the web and receive standard data uploads from "windshield" surveys. We will demonstrate our prototype Tillage Practice Information System to potential end-users at the USDA-NRCS and at the CCX.