GIS and Remote Sensing for Agricultural Resource Management Course

Introduction

The efficiency and accuracy of data are improved when remote sensing data products and GIS are used. Spatial tools such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) for storing and analyzing spatial data can help us make better decisions in agriculture, land development, environmental protection and restoration. Specifically this decision making tools can be used in the context of agriculture in assessment of crop area extent, management of water resources, identification of pest attacks and diseases, yield assessment studies, land suitability assessment for agriculture disaster management  and precision agriculture.

For optimum utilization of available agricultural land resources on a sustainable basis, timely and reliable information regarding their nature, extent and spatial distribution along with their potential and limitations is very important. 

Participants will apply their new skills to one of several case studies in topics on agriculture, pest management, crop monitoring, water resource management and risk assessment among others. This course will offer a mixture of lectures, demonstrations and hands-on exercises using open source GIS and RS software.

Who should apply?

Agricultural experts, soil scientists, Animal Scientists, agronomist, entomologists, ranch managers, farm managers, environmentalist, farmers and students.

No of Days

5 days

Course objective

• Understand Digital Image Processing Techniques in Agriculture Resource Management 
• Understand Precision farming using GIS and RS for Crop management 
• Understand the basic concepts of GIS and Remote Sensing
• Understand GIS and RS applications in disease/pest management 
• Understand various integrations of GIS and RS Agriculture 
• Expose participants in GIS and RS applications in Water management in agriculture 
• Understand participatory method in agriculture resource management in context of GIS and GIS 
• Publish dynamic and interactive agricultural based map in the internet  
• Understand how precision farming and how it’s applied in Agriculture 

Course Content

Introduction, key principles and concepts

• Introduction concepts of GIS and remote sensing in Agricultural Resource management 
• Planning for a GIS system installation 
• Introduction GIS data collection using GPS 
• Gathering data using mobile phones using (ODK) 
• Integrating GPS data into GIS 
• GIS Data sources and types for agriculture 
• Working with data from different sources 
• Geo database creation and maintenance for agricultural resources 
• Attributes manipulation in GIS 
• Facilitated practical exercises in working with tabular data in Excel format 

Digital Image Processing Techniques in Agriculture Resource Management

• Obtaining satellite imagery for agriculture resource management 
• Satellite Image processing and calibration for agricultural resources 
• Land use classification using supervised classification 
• Land use classification using unsupervised classification 
• Accuracy assessment and ground Truthing technique 

Agricultural Resource planning and monitoring

• Agro-Ecological zone mapping 
• Agricultural resource mapping and updating 
• Mapping crop 
• Mapping soil Variability 
• Mapping condition that affects plant   health, yield, or quality of a crop e.g. weed infestation 
• Land suitability assessment for agriculture 

GIS and RS in Soil management

• Characterizing soil spatial variability  
• Site?specific soil management: prescription maps 
• Soil Mapping and Capability Assessment 
• Mapping Soil Erosion Risk Using Rusle 

Case study:GIS and Remote Sensing in Drought Monitoring

Precision farming using GIS and RS for Crop management

• Yield monitoring and mapping  
• Grid sampling, management zones 
• Crop health analysis using NDVI 
• Remote sensing (RS) for precision agriculture 
• Crop stress detection 
• Crop modeling  for yield estimation  and production 

GIS and RS Water management in agriculture

• Multi criteria analysis in determining potential ground water zones 
• Mapping and monitoring irrigated land. 
• Flood monitoring 
• Hydrological modeling and its application in agriculture 
• Statistical analysis procedures on historical series of rainfall data to produce agro climatic classification 
• Land suitability assessment for agriculture 

GIS AND RS Disease/pest management

• Using remote sensing and GIS to identify breeding areas 
• Determining spatial patterns of the disease and pathway 
• Crop damage assessment using change detection 
• Determine the spatial extent of a disease 
• Monitoring weather and ecological conditions favorable for crop pests and disease 

Case study:Remote Sensing for grazing management

Participatory GIS

• Public participation in agricultural resource management 
• Using Google earth in agricultural resource management 
• Web based Publishing for interactive and dynamic agricultural maps