Drought is a naturally occurring phenomenon that occurs all over the world and often poses a potential threat to food security. The Netherlands experienced very severe drought in 2018. This period of heat and drought had a major impact on agricultural production in the Netherlands. Many crops experienced severe yield reductions due to extremely low rainfall that was exacerbated by high temperatures. Due to the dryness of the soil surface, loose soil particles and seeds are blown away when a sandstorm occurs and seeds have not sprouted. This study will mainly look at the dryness of sugar beet plants.
Persistent drought makes sugar beet harvest more difficult to predict. The 2018 drought caused a disappointing result in sugar beet production as the sugar beet campaign was shorter than initially anticipated. There were also variations in the growing period of sugar beet. The quality and sugar content of sugar beet was lower. There were also instances when farmers could not deliver the expected crop because the sugar beet was not ready for harvest.
Using satellite data such as Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2, this study will attempt to detect drought in sugar beet plots in Zeeland. Sentinel-1 signals will be combined with vegetation indices from Sentinel-2 to detect drought. This will help inform growers and planners in the future.
This research is the focus of NEO's intern - Sarah Joey P. Salgado from the Philippines. She is currently pursuing a master's degree in Spatial Engineering at the University of Twente's Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC).
She has a bachelor's degree in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering with an interest in assessing soil and water resources for agriculture and agricultural monitoring using earth observation and a touch of machine learning. Knowing NEO's mission and projects related to her background, she applied for the internship position. On her days off, she enjoys watching twitch and playing computer games. She also enjoys travelling and reading fiction books.
