Field Change Monitoring With Regular Notifications
There are dozens of field conditions in which a farmer has to constantly monitor and quickly react to emerging changes. The question arises how to conduct high-quality quick checks for such changes? Normally the process of monitoring fields using satellite imagery requires a lot of time and patience, since in order to detect changes in field conditions one should constantly compare the images and mull through the data for differences, which can be quite subtle. This issue is solved with Change notifications.
There Is A solution!
The idea has already been implemented for EOSDA Crop Monitoring utilizing the NDVI vegetation index. To achieve this, you simply add your area of interest to the Field List and let the algorithm notify you about slight changes in the fields, so that you can take proper actions to prevent deleterious situations.
It should be noted that the notifications only contain the most important information to the user. The information delivered includes: data source, the desired Index (currently, only NDVI is available), and the percent of index change at which you want to be notified.
The automated index change monitoring system makes it possible to save time and effort and, consequently allowing the user to focus on solving other farming issues. This, in contrast to spending hours to detect changes manually, is what automation should be. Emails are an excellent way to receive the latest information on your fields.
The notifications are efficient in tracking nutritional deficiencies, crop diseases, pests, hail, irrigation disturbances – everything NDVI is able to detect. Among other things, notifications don’t just stop at the bad news, you will be notified of positive index increases as well.
EOSDA Crop Monitoring
Using satellite monitoring for remote fields management in one platform!
Prompt Email Alerts
The algorithm identifies changes in your fields, such as:
- Sifting through satellite imagery
- Generating NDVI map(s)
- Comparing current and past available scenes
- Comparison of values
- Notifying the user by email
This simple, but powerful solution allows each user to receive notifications every time a new image of his field has been added to the platform. Notifications can be completely muted at any time.
Only The Most Important Changes In Your Fields
Both for non-expert users and those who have been monitoring a large number of fields on a daily basis, the amount of satellite data available may seem overwhelming. In order to save the time of each user, EOSDA Crop Monitoring briefly provides the most relevant and recent data.
Though applying vegetation indices to a swath of images is a time-consuming task, the loss of important information is hardly possible. For us it is crucial that the user does not miss any important information, so one can easily observe NDVI value changes wherever he is.
NB: Your Plan defines the area you can be notified of. An area of 1000 hectares is available for Pro and 250 hectares are covered by our Free plan. In addition, you can request individual pricing as well.
How Field Monitoring Takes Place On The Platform
The system is not only designed for experienced users who constantly work with remote sensing data, it is also for new non-expert users. Given the possible difficulties in working with the EOSDA Crop Monitoring tool, the notification system will allow you to receive information about what is happening in your fields without requiring years of experience. A brief overview sent to your inbox is enough to understand what changes have occurred and how urgently you should respond. Currently, notifications can only be received for the NDVI spectral index and with data derived from the Sentinel-2 satellite.
As a result, farmers are able to receive the latest changes in NDVI that notifies them about both index decreases and increases, which is a positive indicator of the plants state. However, in addition to positive field state, an increase of an index within a ploughed field may indicate that this field is overgrown with weeds, which is not such a positive scenario. You’ll always be capable of seizing the moment with EOSDA Crop Monitoring notifications. Precise data from Sentinel-2 and the NDVI spectral index ensure high-quality field vegetation analysis.
Enabling Notifications In EOSDA Crop Monitoring
Here are some steps that will help you track changes within your fields:
- To get started with EOSDA Crop Monitoring you need to find a suitable location first. To find your field you can simply pick it from the map or find the location using the Search option. The ability to draw your field or upload .kml, .shp or .geojson files is available as well.
- Once you have selected your field, add it to the Field list using the Add to my fields button.
- When the necessary fields are added, go to the Notification manager tab in the main sidebar.
- That’s all. All of the necessary conditions are met, notifications are on by default for all added fields. In order to disable them, select the Mute option from the drop-down menu at the top.
NB: Notifications are sent when changes exceed a five percentile margin in the index, by default. - The Notification Manager tab displays the field’s footprint and name, regional location, coordinates, area, crops growing, current field index, and the changes in its value. Also included is the time at which your last image was acquired. To find the dates when statistics were generated, use the calendar. Most values can be sorted from most to least and vice versa.
- Drop-down menus for changing the index or value and managing the email notifications are in the upper left corner. The Index menu offers the ability to select the index displayed in statistics (currently only NDVI is available). The Value change menu provides you with the ability to choose the increments of value changes displayed in statistics. Setting a certain percentage will disable the display of results with a lower increment of change.
NB: Indices such as ReCl, NDRE, CCCI, and MSAVI are already in the pipeline, stay tuned.
With that accomplished, a list of the slightest changes to your field will be sent to your email every time they occur. The process of setting up the service takes no more than five minutes, but thanks to this action, the user saves countless hours every month.
Subscribe now and receive all of the latest changes to your fields!
For more detailed information on Notifications, please check our EOSDA Crop Monitoring user-guide or email us at sales@eosda.com
About the author:
Kateryna Sergieieva has a Ph.D. in information technologies and 15 years of experience in remote sensing. She is a Senior Scientist at EOSDA responsible for developing technologies for satellite monitoring and surface feature change detection. Kateryna is an author of over 60 scientific publications.
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