Operating in a World of Multiple Data Sources

Glenn Bethel

USDA Remote Sensing Advisor

September 18, 2018

11 Agencies/Offices use imagery

History

• The USDA operational use of aerial photography dates back to the 1930’s. Flew 90% of US Farm Land by 1941.

• Imagery exploitation methodologies used within USDA have continued to evolve since the LACIE (1974-1978) and AgRISTARS (1978-1984) programs.

• In the 1980’s, in order to reduce latency, USDA/FAS processes the daily ground station tape to download Landsat MSS imagery. Although the tape contained the entire global acquisitions, FAS was only allowed to download imagery on the tape that we paid for. – No Orthos, georeferencing not great.

– No top of atmosphere or any atmospheric corrections

• We have come a long way!

Afternoon Orbit

AVHRR

MODIS

spatial resolution: 250m, 500m, 1000m

10 – 20 km swathspatial resolution: .5 - 1m

Commercial High Resolution Systems

spatial resolution: 1100m

2300 km swath

2700 km swath

USDA Vegetation Monitoring Satellites

2250 km swath

Proba-V

spatial resolution: 100 to 350 m

Spot 5/6spatial resolution: 5m, 20m

60 km swath

Landsatspatial resolution: 15m, 30m

Relative Ground Swath

DMC-2, Deimos-1

spatial resolution: 22 m

183 km swath

VIIRS

3000 km swathspatial resolution: 375m, 750m

600 km swath

Morning Orbit

AWiFS/LISS-3

spatial resolution: 56 m 737 km / 140 km swath

Sentinel-2

292 km swathspatial resolution: 10, 20, 60m

Non-US Satellite SwathUS Satellite Swath

https://ipad.fas.usda.gov/cropexplorer/Default.aspx

PROBA-V Results Compared to AVHRRSame Date Range

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MODIS-based Corn Yield Modeling Quantify Impact of Extreme Weather

Hail

Flood

Drought

MODIS Aqua NDVI Anomaly August 21 to August 28, 2018

Crop Mask used to focus information on cropland

Above Normal Crop NDVI

Below Normal Crop NDVI

By Processing the Time Series, we can relate current conditions with MODIS historic observations.

Above Normal Crop NDVI

https://glam1.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Western Australia

Selected 4 LIS .25 degree cells for Graphs

All MODIS is processed allowing for Time Series analysis comparisons to Mean and Max NDVI

Selected 4 LIS .25 degree cells for Graphs

MuchBelow Normal Crop NDVI

https://glam1.gsfc.nasa.gov/

New South Wales

Confirming Condition with Sentinel-2

30 August 2018, Sentinel-2 (8, 4,3)

30 August 2017, Sentinel-2 (8, 4,3) 30 August 2017, Sentinel-2 (8, 4,3)

29 August 2018, Sentinel-2 (8, 4,3)

Western Australia

New South Wales

Australia Wheat: Forecast Production Revised Down

Bottom Line from World AgriculturalProduction Circular

• USDA forecasts Australia’s 2018/19 wheat crop at 20.0 million metric tons (mmt), down 1.3 mmt or 6 percent from last year.

• Harvested area is now expected to total 11.0 million hectares (mha), down 1.25 mha or 10 percent from last year.

• Expected yield is estimated at 1.82 tons per hectare, essentially the same as last year.

• Compared to last year – Production Down– Harvested Area Down– Yield about the same

https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/production.pdf

9

2008 – 2017 freely available2008, 2009 reprocessed from 56m -> 30mhttps://www.nass.usda.gov/Research_and_Science/Cropland/SARS1a.phpThus, a consistently generated 10 year history of US crops at 30m resolution now exists

US Land Cover Mapping- Cropland Data Layer (CDL)

102017 CDLSouth-central

Nebraska

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Agricultural areas Landsat 8 Sentinel 2a

DMC Deimos(USDA License)

DMC UK2(USDA License)

Resourcesat-2 LISS3

Multiple Cropland Data Layer (CDL) Imagery Inputs

Imagery for the entire grown season is downloaded and classified

USDA Aerial Photography

National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP)

Three 60cm StatesMost States 100cm

2018 National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP)

60cm for all states other than Oregon.30cm Oregon

Most States 60cm End of 1 meter NAIP

Upgrades with Funding Source

STATE CONTRACTOR CCMs Stereo DSM

CA Leica Geosystems NRCS

CT Quantum Spatial NRCS FS FS

DE Quantum Spatial NRCS FS FS

IN Surdex Corporation NRCS

KY Surdex Corporation NRCS

MA Quantum Spatial NRCS FS FS

MD Quantum Spatial NRCS FS FS

ME Surdex Corporation NRCS NRCS NRCS

MI Surdex Corporation NRCS

MO Quantum Spatial NRCS

MS Leica Geosystems NRCS

STATE CONTRACTOR CCMs Stereo DSM

NC Quantum Spatial NRCS NRCS

ND Leica Geosystems NRCS

NE Leica Geosystems NRCS

NH Quantum Spatial NRCS FS FS

NM Leica Geosystems NRCS

RI Quantum Spatial NRCS FS FS

SD Leica Geosystems NRCS

TN Surdex Corporation NRCS FS

UT Leica Geosystems NRCS

VA Quantum Spatial NRCS FS

VT Quantum Spatial NRCS FS FS

WI Quantum Spatial NRCS

WV Quantum Spatial NRCS FS FS

CCMs = Compressed County MosaicDSM = Digital Surface Model

Upgrades

Compressed County Mosaics

• Acquired for all states.

• 1 MrSid File per County

• Easy to manage and deliver to federal, state, and local users.

• Staff bring most recent base imagery to the field

• NAIP has used CCMs since 2003.

Stereo Imagery Acquisition

• Acquired for 9 states.

• Delivered to funding partner.

• Not QC’ed by USDA/FSA/APFO.

• Evolutionary. Before NAIP, we used 9x9 contact prints for stereo exploitation.

9/14/2018 USDA RSCC 20

NRCS Easement ProgramsFrom 1992 to FY2017, NRCS has acquired easements on over 4.4 million acres on over 21,500 individual parcels for restoration and protection.

Remote sensing allows NRCS to make the most efficient use of staff time to accomplish monitoring requirements, and report the condition of stewardship lands annually on a fiscal year basis.

NRCS Stewardship Lands Imagery (SLI) standards:

• Direct digital New

• 15 cm (GSD)

• Orthorectified

• 4 Band (R, G, B, NIR)

• 8 bits per band (256 tonal values)

• GeoTIFF format providing natural color and Color infrared (CIR)

Stewardship Lands - Any easement where the U.S. is named as a grantee in the easement deed.

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/technical/nra/dma/?cid=stelprdb1043930

Over 21,500 easements covering 4.4 million acres

3,665,375

acres will be

checked

using

imagery in

2018

Types of Features NRI Needs to Analyze with in-situ Observations and Imagery

National Resources Inventory (NRI)

Cropland

1st Stage Sample Map

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2018 National Resources Inventory (NRI)

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/technical/nra/nri/

The 1997 NRI sample

contained over 300,000

sample segments and

800,000 sample points.

2018 National Resources Inventory (NRI)

Specifications:

• 1:7,920 scale, 6 inch (153mm) camera focal length,

• 9"x9" format vertical,

• color-negative aerial film

• resolution of 0.15 meters

• Digital scans are part of deliverable

Photo acquisition periods are established by state and geographic areas according to leaf-on or agricultural growing seasons and range from approximately March through September.

Where:

• Approximately 70,762 sites located in the 48 contiguous states;

• 344 sites in Hawaii,

• 473 sites in Puerto Rico/US Virgin Islands.

Photo acquisition periods are established by state and geographic areas according to leaf-on or agricultural growing seasons and range from approximately March through September.

• NRCS leads the efforts to acquire new DigitalGlobe imagery for Hawaii and the US Territories in

the Pacific Basin

• The imagery is mosaicked and packaged into a single GIS ready file per island.

• Imagery is delivered as one Mr. Sid compressed 3 band Natural Color file per Island.

• The licenses are upgraded to allow for public use.

• The imagery is used to implement USDA programs and interact with our customers.

• Multiple versions are available for time series analysis.

Hawaii and US Territories in the Pacific Basin

Hawaiian Islands Update

Orthoimagery Status, Version 4

September 2018

Niihau KauaiOahu

Maui

Lanai

Kahoolawe

Molokai

Hawaii

Island

- USDA has received updated imagery

for all of the Hawaiian in the last year.

- Imagery acquisition dates vary by island (2016-2018)

- USDA has processed, created preliminary compressed files

for two recent hurricanes. These datasets have been made

available to the Federal community for disaster Response.

They will be posted to the USDA Gateway.

- All Hawaiian Islands imagery is from DigitalGlobe WV2-WV3

and has the end user license upgrade to “Group >5”. This allows

the broadest possible usage. NGA and USDA funded the imagery

and license upgrades.

Oahu, Hawaii

DG-WV2

December, 2017

Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia

DG-WV2

2016

Pacific Basin

One Mr. Sid compressed 3 band

Natural Color file per Island

Tutuila, American Samoa

DG-WV3

2017

System and Technology

• Movement to processing in the cloud. Use of AWS and Google Earth Engine (GEE).

– One Agency has contracted with GEE to allow operational processing of imagery.

– Minimizes the need to download imagery.

• Some agencies use of PII data as an input for compliance and classifications. This results in the need still download imagery and process locally.

– USGS Analysis Ready imagery or process to surface reflectance internally.

Qualitative or Quantitative

• Well calibrated imagery that is also cross calibrated is ideal.

• Correction to Surface Reflectance is now the rule rather than the exception.

• We can use uncalibrated imagery for certain applications.

– Sometimes being able to quickly obverse a target is more important than radiometric accuracy.

• NAIP is a great example. Not processed to surface reflectance.

– Each contractor has algorithms for haze removal and tone balancing.

Questions?