MISTRALE: Monitoring of SoIl moiSture and wateR-flooded Areas for agricuLture and Environment
To feed an additional 2 billion people by 2030, water needs to be used more efficiently. Agriculture uses around 70 percent of all freshwater worldwide. It is estimated that water demand would grow by 45 percent by 2030 as increasingly affluent consumers demand higher value food. Farmers are challenged to produce “more crop per drop”.
MISTRALE sets up a service providing soil moisture maps and flooded area maps for improved monitoring of agricultural fields. These soil moisture maps help farmers to make more efficient decisions where and when to irrigate. MISTRALE also enables the monitoring of catchment areas and wetlands, providing water managers with information to optimize their activities.
To do so, MISTRALE developed a prototype of a GNSS Reflectometry sensor integrated on a dedicated remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS). The GNSS-R sensor measures the GNSS signals reflected by the ground and derives from these measurements the soil-water properties. As with other remote sensing techniques, observations in GNSS-R are based on the variability of the soil’s dielectric properties with the humidity of the terrain. Consequently, the reflected signal's peak power can be related to soil moisture. Practical results of the prototype are given in the following link: http://www.mistrale.eu/Results/preliminary-flights/first-results
See also: https://smart-akis.com/SFCPPortal/#/app-h/technologies?techid=156
Smart-AKIS: European Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) towards innovation-driven research
in Smart Farming Technology
Ongoing | 2016-2018
in Smart Farming Technology
- Main funding source
- Horizon 2020 (EU Research and Innovation Programme)
- Geographical location
- Greece