Irrigation monitoring from satellite at hyper-high resolution: Paving the way for remote-sensing-based agricultural water management support services

Recent advances in satellite retrievals of key hydrological variables have fostered the development of approaches for tracking the irrigation footprint on water resources. Nevertheless, constraints due to the native spatial and temporal resolutions of remotely sensed data still limit the building of...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jacopo Dari, Stefano Lo Presti, Luca Brocca
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-08-01
Series:Agricultural Water Management
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377425003415
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849254099456884736
author Jacopo Dari
Stefano Lo Presti
Luca Brocca
author_facet Jacopo Dari
Stefano Lo Presti
Luca Brocca
author_sort Jacopo Dari
collection DOAJ
description Recent advances in satellite retrievals of key hydrological variables have fostered the development of approaches for tracking the irrigation footprint on water resources. Nevertheless, constraints due to the native spatial and temporal resolutions of remotely sensed data still limit the building of supporting systems for agricultural water management relying on Earth Observation. This work aims at filling this gap by applying well-established irrigation mapping and quantification techniques with multiresolution satellite data as input to reproduce irrigation dynamics at the unprecedented spatial sampling of 10 m. Results are validated across different scales of interest for water allocation managers, i.e., from the consortium to the single farm level. The irrigation quantification experiment, carried out through the SM-based (Soil-Moisture-based) inversion approach, provides satisfactory results especially in light of the scarcity of ancillary information for refining the estimates. Percentage errors aggregated at the consortium and the farm scales equal to −24 % and to −14 %, respectively, are found. Such results are achieved without considering losses due to irrigation efficiency, as this information is not explicitly available. The irrigation mapping experiment, carried out by leveraging the TSIMAP (Temporal Stability derived Irrigation MAPping) method, is validated at the farm scale only. An overall accuracy of 93 % is reached, corresponding to two agricultural fields misreproduced as non-irrigated out of the total number equal to twenty-eight. The outcomes of this study show the potential of hyper-high resolution implementations of the considered irrigation mapping and quantification techniques for supporting agricultural water managers, highlighting improvements needed to further meet potential users’ requirements.
format Article
id doaj-art-460b58d2a23e4a2693642185d2a4bc7d
institution Kabale University
issn 1873-2283
language English
publishDate 2025-08-01
publisher Elsevier
record_format Article
series Agricultural Water Management
spelling doaj-art-460b58d2a23e4a2693642185d2a4bc7d2025-08-20T03:56:09ZengElsevierAgricultural Water Management1873-22832025-08-0131710962710.1016/j.agwat.2025.109627Irrigation monitoring from satellite at hyper-high resolution: Paving the way for remote-sensing-based agricultural water management support servicesJacopo Dari0Stefano Lo Presti1Luca Brocca2Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, via G. Duranti 93, Perugia 06125, Italy; National Research Council, Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection, via Madonna Alta 126, Perugia 06128, Italy; Corresponding author at: Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, via G. Duranti 93, Perugia 06125, Italy.Centrale Valutativa Srl, Roma 00131, ItalyNational Research Council, Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection, via Madonna Alta 126, Perugia 06128, ItalyRecent advances in satellite retrievals of key hydrological variables have fostered the development of approaches for tracking the irrigation footprint on water resources. Nevertheless, constraints due to the native spatial and temporal resolutions of remotely sensed data still limit the building of supporting systems for agricultural water management relying on Earth Observation. This work aims at filling this gap by applying well-established irrigation mapping and quantification techniques with multiresolution satellite data as input to reproduce irrigation dynamics at the unprecedented spatial sampling of 10 m. Results are validated across different scales of interest for water allocation managers, i.e., from the consortium to the single farm level. The irrigation quantification experiment, carried out through the SM-based (Soil-Moisture-based) inversion approach, provides satisfactory results especially in light of the scarcity of ancillary information for refining the estimates. Percentage errors aggregated at the consortium and the farm scales equal to −24 % and to −14 %, respectively, are found. Such results are achieved without considering losses due to irrigation efficiency, as this information is not explicitly available. The irrigation mapping experiment, carried out by leveraging the TSIMAP (Temporal Stability derived Irrigation MAPping) method, is validated at the farm scale only. An overall accuracy of 93 % is reached, corresponding to two agricultural fields misreproduced as non-irrigated out of the total number equal to twenty-eight. The outcomes of this study show the potential of hyper-high resolution implementations of the considered irrigation mapping and quantification techniques for supporting agricultural water managers, highlighting improvements needed to further meet potential users’ requirements.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377425003415Irrigation mappingIrrigation quantificationField scaleRemote sensing
spellingShingle Jacopo Dari
Stefano Lo Presti
Luca Brocca
Irrigation monitoring from satellite at hyper-high resolution: Paving the way for remote-sensing-based agricultural water management support services
Agricultural Water Management
Irrigation mapping
Irrigation quantification
Field scale
Remote sensing
title Irrigation monitoring from satellite at hyper-high resolution: Paving the way for remote-sensing-based agricultural water management support services
title_full Irrigation monitoring from satellite at hyper-high resolution: Paving the way for remote-sensing-based agricultural water management support services
title_fullStr Irrigation monitoring from satellite at hyper-high resolution: Paving the way for remote-sensing-based agricultural water management support services
title_full_unstemmed Irrigation monitoring from satellite at hyper-high resolution: Paving the way for remote-sensing-based agricultural water management support services
title_short Irrigation monitoring from satellite at hyper-high resolution: Paving the way for remote-sensing-based agricultural water management support services
title_sort irrigation monitoring from satellite at hyper high resolution paving the way for remote sensing based agricultural water management support services
topic Irrigation mapping
Irrigation quantification
Field scale
Remote sensing
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377425003415
work_keys_str_mv AT jacopodari irrigationmonitoringfromsatelliteathyperhighresolutionpavingthewayforremotesensingbasedagriculturalwatermanagementsupportservices
AT stefanolopresti irrigationmonitoringfromsatelliteathyperhighresolutionpavingthewayforremotesensingbasedagriculturalwatermanagementsupportservices
AT lucabrocca irrigationmonitoringfromsatelliteathyperhighresolutionpavingthewayforremotesensingbasedagriculturalwatermanagementsupportservices