BG8.9 | Agroecosystem monitoring and indicators from farm to continent to improve climate and biodiversity
Agroecosystem monitoring and indicators from farm to continent to improve climate and biodiversity
Co-organized by ERE1
Convener: Marijn van der Velde | Co-conveners: Anina GilgenECSECS, Felix Herzog, Emma Soule, Xiaopeng SongECSECS, Jinwei Dong
Orals
| Fri, 19 Apr, 14:00–15:45 (CEST)
 
Room 2.23
Posters on site
| Attendance Thu, 18 Apr, 16:15–18:00 (CEST) | Display Thu, 18 Apr, 14:00–18:00
 
Hall X1
Posters virtual
| Attendance Thu, 18 Apr, 14:00–15:45 (CEST) | Display Thu, 18 Apr, 08:30–18:00
 
vHall X1
Orals |
Fri, 14:00
Thu, 16:15
Thu, 14:00
Transitioning our food systems to become more sustainable requires a quantitative and integrative understanding linking agricultural practices and impacts. A further requirement is a capacity to monitor the performance of farms in achieving biodiversity and climate objectives. Agricultural policies require such monitoring to track progress towards their environmental goals, including nature restoration.

In this session, we invite contributions that focus on quantitative evaluation, indicators, and sustainability assessment frameworks for monitoring purposes. This includes novel methods that for example gather in-situ data through citizen science, use farm management information systems, surveys, or use remote sensing to observe changes in farm management and environment including landscape and biodiversity. Modelling approaches that evaluate trade-offs with food production, quantification of agroecosystem services, GHG accounting, and methodologies for carbon farming certification schemes in cropland and grassland are also welcome.

Contributions can be at different levels, from pixels to parcels, from farms to landscapes, and from regions to continents. Linking these levels is relevant in order to relate individual farm measures to (inter)national policy objectives.

Session assets

Orals: Fri, 19 Apr | Room 2.23

Chairpersons: Marijn van der Velde, Anina Gilgen, Jinwei Dong
14:00–14:05
14:05–14:25
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EGU24-21456
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solicited
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Highlight
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On-site presentation
Wendy Fjellstad and Ulrike Bayr

The OECD uses a wide range of agri-environmental indicators to monitor effects of the agricultural sector on the environment. However, the only indicator of farmland biodiversity is the farmland bird index, and this is not reported by all member states. Therefore, work is ongoing to design a more general indicator of farmland biodiversity that can be reported by all member states.

There are many challenges in creating an indicator that can be applied across all OECD countries. These countries have very diverse farming systems, land ownership, climate, biophysical conditions, and species pools. In addition, there are big differences in the type and amount of data available with which to calculate an indicator. Some countries already have monitoring programmes, tailored to their specific national needs and priorities. It may be challenging to harmonize reporting across countries, when data are collected in different ways and from different sources.

As a first step, the OECD published in 2023 guidelines for the development of an OECD farmland habitat biodiversity indicator (https://doi.org/10.1787/09d45d55-en). The aim is to calculate an indicator based on all agricultural habitats within a country, both those of high nature value, but also the ordinary and those that are currently of very low value.

In 2024, several countries are testing calculation of the indicator using national data. This presentation will describe the proposed indicator and share experiences from work to calculate the indicator for Norway.

How to cite: Fjellstad, W. and Bayr, U.: An indicator to monitor farmland biodiversity in OECD countries, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-21456, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-21456, 2024.

14:25–14:35
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EGU24-21429
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Highlight
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On-site presentation
Christian Bockstaller, Emma Soulé, Bastien Dallaporta, and Clélia Sirami

Agriculture plays a major role in the erosion of biodiversity, which represents one of the exceeded planetary boundaries. In the quest for solution to mitigate impacts of farming systems on biodiversity, it is essential to have tools to assess these impacts. Besides a plethora of indicators using field measurement of abundance or/and species richness of one or several taxa, predictive indicators offer a compromise between feasibility and integration of processes. Such indicators do not require in situ measurements and enable linking the response of biodiversity to drivers like agricultural practices.

Here we review three examples of predictive indicators representing a gradient of complexity regarding the number of input variables on field practices and landscape structure, the number of output variables on biodiversity components, and the model structure. The three indicators are NIVA-Biodiversity, BioSyScan and I-BIO.

NIVA-Biodiversity assesses biodiversity at the landscape and regional level, assessing biodiversity through a global score, without any precision on taxonomic or functional components, based on the percentage of semi-natural habitats (SNH), field size and crop diversity. BioSyScan is calculated at field level and assesses the impacts of field management (e.g. tillage, fertilization, pesticides spraying) and landscape variables (e.g field size and SNH) on soil-dependent species and mobile species. Last, I-BIO considers direct impacts of cropping systems on five taxonomic groups (microorganisms, plants, soil invertebrates, flying invertebrates and vertebrates) and indirect impacts through trophic chains.  It includes more precise variables on field and landscape management than the two other indicators. The three indicators are based on mixed models using linguistic rules “if-then”. While I-BIO is based on the DEXi tool and remains totally qualitative, NIVA-Biodiversity and BioSyScan were designed using the CONTRA aggregation method integrating fuzzy subsets in the decision rules, to mitigate threshold effects and increase transparency. We will highlight the potential use of each indicator using case studies, discuss the pros and cons of each indicator, and present the research needs to ensure their scientific validity.

How to cite: Bockstaller, C., Soulé, E., Dallaporta, B., and Sirami, C.: Assessing impacts of farming systems on biodiversity using predictive indicators: a gradient of complexity, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-21429, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-21429, 2024.

14:35–14:45
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EGU24-1070
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ECS
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On-site presentation
Chanda Kumari, Roopam Shukla, and Stephanie Gleixner

Abstract: Agrobiodiversity, a key principle of agroecology, encompasses crop diversification, offering resilience to climate variability (Ronnie Vernooy, 2022). Increasing crop species diversity within a region could improve agricultural sustainability, but knowledge of the spatiotemporal variation of crop species diversity and how this is related to climatic conditions is limited (Sjulgård, H., et al., 2022). Higher crop diversity may alleviate the effects of heat stress (Degani et al., 2019, Marini et al., 2020) and drought (Bowles et al., 2020, Marini et al., 2020) on crop yields. Therefore, crop diversity will play a crucial role in the functioning of agroecosystems under climate change (Sjulgård, H., et al., 2022). Hence, this study aims to investigate the relation between the spatiotemporal pattern of crop diversity and changing climatic conditions at the district level in India by building relationship between crop diversification and climatic variables. Crop species diversity was estimated using the Shannon Index. Advanced statistical analysis was used to understand the relationship between climatic variables and crop diversity. The outcome will also help the policymaker, researchers, and field practitioners in designing climate-resilient agricultural practices following the principles of agroecology.

Keywords:

Crop diversification, Shannon Index, Climate variables, Risk map, Agrobiodiversity, Agroecology, India.

Figure 1: Schematic representation of the proposed work

How to cite: Kumari, C., Shukla, R., and Gleixner, S.: Understanding spatio-temporal pattern of crop diversification for India, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-1070, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-1070, 2024.

14:45–14:55
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EGU24-3443
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Highlight
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On-site presentation
Silvio Blaser, Simon Baumgartner, Jérôme Schneuwly, and Anina Gilgen

In order to fulfil the requirements of the Agriculture Act and the Ordinance on the Assessment of Sustainability, the Swiss Federal Research Centre Agroscope assesses the quantitative and qualitative impacts of agriculture on the environment using regional and farm-related eco-indicators. This is done by the monitoring of the Swiss agri-environmental system (MAUS).

Thematically, these indicators cover a wide range of agroecological hotspots, such as humus, heavy metal and nutrient balances, use and risks of plant protection products, potential impact on biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions and others. Agroscope bases the calculation of the indicators largely on existing data. To supplement and improve the quality of this data, MAUS is currently launching projects to acquire and integrate data from remote sensing, online surveys and farm management information systems (FMIS).

Integrating FMIS data essentially means requesting data that is already collected by farmers for their farm management and in order to receive direct payments. A large part of this is field calendar data, which describes what happened in a field after the previous crop was harvested: e.g., how was the seedbed prepared, what fertilisation and plant protection measures were carried out before the crop was harvested, etc.

There are various large gaps in the level of detail and scope of the FMIS available on the market compared to what is needed to calculate the indicators. Therefore, solutions are needed that allow the farms providing data to supplement missing information and, where necessary, to specify the entries for MAUS.

As part of a pilot project, a technical solution was developed with one of the Swiss providers and is currently being implemented. This has shown that, in addition to a precise definition of requirements, constant and lively dialogue is important. A comprehensive data set that exemplifies how operating data must arrive at MAUS not only helps with final testing, but also with understanding the implementation.

In the near future, other interested FMIS are to supplement their platforms so that data can be supplied to MAUS. In the collaboration between Agroscope and the interested providers, both parties will benefit from the preliminary work and the findings of the pilot project.

How to cite: Blaser, S., Baumgartner, S., Schneuwly, J., and Gilgen, A.: Integration of data from agricultural practice into the Swiss agri-environmental monitoring project MAUS, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-3443, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-3443, 2024.

14:55–15:05
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EGU24-16609
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On-site presentation
Francesco Galimberti, Rui Catarino, Thomas Fellmann, Pietro Florio, Pieter Kempeneers, Ana Klinnert, Michael Olvedy, Alberto Pistocchi, and Raphael D'Andrimont

The European Commission’s strategies under the European Green Deal aim at reducing the risks to human health and the environment from pesticide use. One of the proposed policies to achieve that goal is a restriction in use of pesticides within and near urban areas. 
In this study, we aim to estimate the impact of a full pesticide use restriction on crops near urban areas at the EU scale, by combining available EU data on urban settlements and crops. We will achieve this by utilizing spatial layers from the Joint Research Centre (JRC), including the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) and the EUCROPMAP 2018 integrated with information from the Corine Land Cover (CLC) 2018.
Using various buffer distances from urban areas, the study seeks to quantify the agricultural area and crop types that will be impacted by the full restriction in use. The results will also provide insights into the percentage of treated vs. non-treated crops present in these buffer zones, highlighting country and regional differences. The economic importance of crops, together with reduced crop yields can be explored as well. Additionally, reduction in health risk to residents can be estimated from information on crop-specific intensities in pesticide use.

How to cite: Galimberti, F., Catarino, R., Fellmann, T., Florio, P., Kempeneers, P., Klinnert, A., Olvedy, M., Pistocchi, A., and D'Andrimont, R.: Evaluation of pesticide use restrictions near urban areas in the European Union, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-16609, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-16609, 2024.

15:05–15:15
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EGU24-15266
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Highlight
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Virtual presentation
Ishan Deshpande, Amandeep Kaur Reehal, Gaurav Singh, Chandan Nath, Renu Singh, and Alok Talekar

Accurate and timely information about expected crop production is crucial for various applications including agricultural monitoring, policy making, and food security assessment. Policy makers can use near-real time crop maps to better determine crop support prices, storage infrastructure, and imports. In the context of India, absence of farm-level crop maps r the government to work with aggregate statistics based on manual surveys, and therefore are fundamentally limited in scale and accuracy. Surveys over large regions such as entire states or countries are slow and provide information only after large delays. Indian farms also go through up to three crop rotations a year necessitating continual monitoring. We put forward a nation-wide, farm-level, weekly agricultural monitoring and event detection model for the study area of India. Our model leverages remote sensing and machine learning to build a crop map that allows us to accurately monitor individual farms across large areas. 

We utilize the rich spectral and temporal information provided by Sentinel-2 satellite to provide near-real time crop monitoring, including sowing, crop type, and harvesting information. The predictions are done on an individual farm level with farm boundaries coming from a field segmentation model. Making predictions on a farm level scale helps getting more accurate yield estimates and allows monitoring individual fields for credit, insurance, resource allocation, etc. Currently, the model is able to identify major winter crops with an accuracy of up to 80% as early as 2 months after sowing. Equipped with the ability to provide weekly sowing and harvesting information makes the model near-real time for agricultural purposes. We also demonstrate the scalability of the model by showing results pan-India, across several diverse agro climatic zones. The model successfully generalizes to many unseen regions without requiring regional data. Using satellite data to provide accurate and timely crop cover information has the potential of saving millions of dollars spent by the government on manual surveys.

How to cite: Deshpande, I., Reehal, A. K., Singh, G., Nath, C., Singh, R., and Talekar, A.: Towards Live, Nation Wide, Farm-Level  Crop Monitoring , EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-15266, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-15266, 2024.

15:15–15:25
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EGU24-13479
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ECS
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Highlight
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On-site presentation
Chaidir Arsyan Adlan, Birka Wicke, Steef V. Hanssen, and Carlijn Hendriks

Agriculture and its land use are associated with 22% of global annual anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1]. Reducing these emissions requires insight into how much emissions are caused by specific agricultural commodities and where they occur. Commodity-specific GHG footprints are a useful tool in this regard as they enable producers to determine the emission intensity and environmental impact of their products [2]-[3]. Further, they can help identify emission reduction strategies and region-specific mitigation efforts [4]-[6].

Spatially-explicit GHG footprints are particularly useful since they show the geographic distribution of commodities’ emission intensity and allow for the comparison across countries [7]. Several past studies have produced crop-specific footprints but considered emissions solely from land use change and did not include emissions from agricultural practices [8]-[11]. Attribution was mostly conducted at aggregate level such as country and region level [16],[17]. Those studies that employed spatially-explicit attribution methods are characterized by limited geographical coverage [14] and a limited selection of crops [15]. Studies also applied largely different methods for attributing emissions to crops, making comparison across studies not possible. 

The current study aims at filling in this research gap by improving data resolution and the methodology for attributing dynamic land-use emissions to specific crops. We derive global spatially-explicit GHG emission footprints for 161 agricultural crops over the period of 1970 to 2021 at 15 arcmin resolution. We do so by quantifying spatially-explicit land-use emissions related to agriculture and then attributing them to specific agricultural commodities (Fig1). The analysis is conducted using the LUH2 dataset on land use dynamics over time [16] and IMAGE-LPJmL 3.2 for carbon stock data [17]. IMAGE-LPJmL is a dynamic global vegetation model that simulates vegetation dynamics and distribution based on carbon cycle and crop growth model [18], [19]. This allows leveraging advanced data in terms of dynamic, annual, and spatially specific carbon stocks (Tier-3), rather than constant and/or national level carbon stock data (Tier-1) as generally used in the literature.

This study also compares three different emission attribution methods (AM) (Fig2). AM1 uses an annual accounting period, attributing emissions to the land use change committed in the same year. AM2 uses a larger time step and attributes the emissions only to the land use type at the end of the accounting period. These two methods are the two most employed methods in carbon accounting studies. We also propose an alternative approach that reflects the dynamics of land use (AM3); we attribute the emissions based on occupation year of each land use type in the accounting period.

The expected results of this study are crop-specific GHG footprints in terms of land use emissions per production area (tCO2eq/ha) and per crop yield (tCO2eq/ton) at the grid level as well as means and variations per crop and country. Also, variations as a result of different AMs will be presented and its implications for research and application in e.g. corporate emission reporting and target setting will be discussed. 

Fig1

Fig2

How to cite: Adlan, C. A., Wicke, B., Hanssen, S. V., and Hendriks, C.: Spatially-explicit greenhouse gas footprints of agricultural commodities from around the world, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-13479, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-13479, 2024.

15:25–15:35
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EGU24-7035
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Highlight
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On-site presentation
Colin Whitfield, Emily Cavaliere, Helen Baulch, Robert Clark, Chris Spence, Kevin Shook, John Pomeroy, and Zhihua He

Agricultural regions worldwide face the dual challenge of producing food for a growing world population while simultaneously reducing the industry’s environmental footprint. The prairie region of western Canada, where more than 40 million ha are used as cropland or pasture, is one of the world’s major food producing regions. This complex landscape provides agroecosystem services associated with these agricultural lands and their millions of depressional wetlands. As a cold region, and one with a highly variable climate which is undergoing strong climate change, agricultural practices continue to evolve. One widely used tool for adaptation to wet periods and to maximize arable land area is to drain wetlands; however, a tradeoff exists between draining wetlands to support expansion of cropland, and conserving wetlands to maintain their valuable ecosystem services. Wetland drainage decisions are often made without identifying impacts to the services these systems provide.

We address this gap using a novel assessment to quantify impacts to ecosystem services via wetland drainage in the Canadian prairie landscape, and explore how wetland ecosystem services may be impacted by future climate. Quantifying response of a suite of indicators (median annual flows, total phosphorus export, riparian habitat, dabbling ducks, wetland-associated birds, carbon sequestration) to wetland drainage demonstrated that all respond strongly to the loss of depressional wetlands, but sensitivity varies among the indicators. Median annual flows and phosphorus export respond more strongly than longer return period flows, potentially tripling in magnitude with high levels of wetland loss. Dabbling ducks and wetland-associated bird abundances are even more sensitive, with abundances predicted to decrease by half with loss of as little as 20% of wetland area. As a relatively unique region, where inundated wetland area is highly dynamic both interannually as the system alternates between dry and wet phases, and intra-annually (across seasons), wetland ecosystem services response to climate change is more nuanced. In the Canadian prairie, there appears to be a delicate balance between future warming and changes in precipitation amount that could yield either increases or decreases in wetland area, with wetland ecosystem services anticipated to change accordingly. Our results illustrate the sensitivity of wetland ecosystem services to agroecosystem management and climate change in a major food producing region, highlighting the need to consider the tradeoff between loss of these services and benefits of agricultural expansion. Under a drier future climate, fewer remaining wetlands may both enhance the value of wetland-associated ecosystem services, and temper the demand for wetland drainage.

 

How to cite: Whitfield, C., Cavaliere, E., Baulch, H., Clark, R., Spence, C., Shook, K., Pomeroy, J., and He, Z.: Assessment of wetland ecosystem services associated with changing climate and agricultural wetland drainage in a major food producing region, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-7035, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-7035, 2024.

15:35–15:45
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EGU24-13714
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Highlight
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On-site presentation
Jie Wang, Chuchen Chang, Xu Wang, Jilin Yang, and Xiangming Xiao

Woody plant encroachment (WPE) into grasslands has been occurring globally and may be accelerated by climate change and human activities in the future. There are limited studies to document this ecological process and hamper our understanding to make sustainable management approaches for grassland conservation.  Here, we improved our previous studies on woody plant encroachment in the grasslands of Oklahoma, USA.  This study (1) summarized the detection of woody plant encroachment into grasslands over the typical regions in global through PALSAR, Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, and Landsat images; (2) examined the drivers of woody plant encroachment into grasslands at local and global scales; and (3) developed approaches to quantify the effects of woody plant encroachment into grasslands on carbon, water, and local land surface temperature. The results provide some insights to understand the process and assocaited drivers of woody plant encroachment during the last decades and the roles on carbon and water cycles and the local environment.

How to cite: Wang, J., Chang, C., Wang, X., Yang, J., and Xiao, X.: Mapping, Attribution, and Environmental Effects of Woody Plant Encroachment in Grasslands under Climate Change and Human Activities, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-13714, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-13714, 2024.

Posters on site: Thu, 18 Apr, 16:15–18:00 | Hall X1

Display time: Thu, 18 Apr, 14:00–Thu, 18 Apr, 18:00
Chairpersons: Emma Soule, Marijn van der Velde
X1.83
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EGU24-1392
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ECS
Yuan Gao, Yaozhong Pan, Shoujia Ren, and Chuanwu Zhao

Maize cultivation significantly contributes to global food security and sustains human livelihoods. Efficient early-season maize mapping is pivotal for forecasting production and informed pre-harvest decisions. Existing approaches rely on prolonged phenological data or available crop labels, limiting their applicability in areas lacking comprehensive data. Thus, an automated, dynamic, and accurate maize identification method for the early growing season is crucial. This study explores spectral bands to distinguish maize early in terms of water content and chlorophyll levels. A novel composite index for dynamic maize identification independent of labels was proposed. Utilizing this index with a multi-temporal Gaussian Mixture Model facilitated early-season maize mapping and identification. Assessments across diverse global regions revealed the method's robustness, consistently achieving 90% accuracy and F1-score. NDCI outperformed other indices, enhancing F1-score by up to 30%. NDCI-mGMM accurately generated maize maps two months pre-harvest, promising an F1 score of at least 77%. Operating autonomously from labels, this framework offers swift and precise maize identification in data-deficient regions, revolutionizing global food security and trade forecasts.

How to cite: Gao, Y., Pan, Y., Ren, S., and Zhao, C.: A novel composite Index for early-season maize mapping, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-1392, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-1392, 2024.

X1.84
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EGU24-2876
Jérôme Schneuwly, Anina Gilgen, and Daniel Bretscher

For a better understanding of the environmental impacts of the agricultural sector and based on federal regulation, the monitoring of the agri-environmental system of Switzerland (MAUS) is tracking the development of different environmental indicators, among them regional GHG emissions. For this purpose, we developed a GHG emission model to calculate farm-scale, yearly, management-influenced emissions.

The considered categories of greenhouse gas emissions largely follow the approach of Switzerland's national greenhouse gas inventory under the UNFCCC (FOEN, 2023), while adaptations in the calculation of emissions from manure management were implemented. Among them, the ALFAM2 (Hafner et al., 2019) methodology was used for slurry application emission estimation and slurry storage emission factors were revised based on the publication from Kupper et al. 2020.

The manure management part of the model depicts nitrogen flows along the manure cascade. At each step (1. barn, pasture, yard; 2. storage; 3. application), a fraction of total ammoniacal nitrogen is being lost as N2O, NH3, NOx or N2. CH4 emissions from manure management are calculated in parallel to the nitrogen containing emissions, following the methods of Soliva et al., 2006. NH3, N2O and CO2 emissions originating from mineral fertilizer, organic products and harvest residues are calculated by multiplying nitrogen or carbonate inputs with respective emission factors. Further, CH4 from enteric fermentation is implemented according to the 2019 IPCC guidelines for greenhouse gas inventories, taking into account gross energy intake. As exact and exhaustive data is not available for every single Swiss farm, data from various sources were combined and averaged on different levels if necessary.

Farm-based calculations allow to monitor the effects of management changes on GHG emissions and to summarize the results at different geographical resolutions depending on the goals of the according study. To analyze regional differences for MAUS, the emissions were summarized per municipality and set in relation to utilized agricultural area. Monte-Carlo-like simulations were run to examine sensitivities of individual input variables and uncertainties, which showed generally a large influence of animal numbers and milk urea concentrations on total farm GHG emissions.

Within MAUS, it is planned to calculate emissions annually to detect potential trends. Further, newly available data sources, like farm specific mineral fertilizer applications, will be considered to make more detailed calculations.

FOEN, 2023: Switzerland’s Greehouse Gas Inventory 1990-2021: National Inventory Document. Submission of April 2023 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Federal Office for the Environment, Bern. URL: https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home/topics/climate/state/data/climate-reporting/ghg-inventories/latest.html (20.12.2023).

Hafner, S.D., Pacholski, A., Bittman, S., Carozzi, M., Chantigny, M., Génermont, S., Häni, C., Hansen, M.N., Huijsmans, J., Kupper, T., Misselbrook, T., Neftel, A., Nyord, T., Sommer, S.G., 2019. A flexible semi-empirical model for estimating ammonia volatilization from field-applied slurry. Atmospheric Environment 199, 474-484.

Kupper, T., Häni, C., Neftel, A., Kincaid, C., Bühler, M., Amon, B., VanderZaag, A., 2020. Ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions from slurry storage - A review. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 300

Soliva, C.R., 2007. Dokumentation der Berechnungsgrundlage von Methan aus der Verdauung und dem Hofdünger landwirtschaftlicher Nutztiere. Federal Office for the Environment, Bern.

How to cite: Schneuwly, J., Gilgen, A., and Bretscher, D.: Modelling greenhouse gas emissions at farm level across Switzerland, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-2876, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-2876, 2024.

X1.85
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EGU24-5171
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ECS
Ting Li, Oliver Miguel Lopez Valencia, Kasper Johansen, and Matthew Francis McCabe

Vegetation phenology, encompassing critical events like leaf emergence and maturity, serves as an important indicator of adaptive plant responses to environmental factors. In the context of Saudi Arabia, existing crop phenology retrieval methods encounter several challenges related to local farm management operations. These can include unstable crop calendars with planting and harvesting at any time throughout the year, uncertainty in sub-field management with independent control of areas within a center-pivot field, and diverse crop rotations between fodder and non-fodder crops. To address these challenges, we present an innovative framework utilizing machine learning and Sentinel-2 NDVI time series data for mapping phenology stages of key crops at a national scale. The framework is composed of three modules that are implemented step-wise, including: (1) a within-field dynamic clustering module (termed WithinFDy) that monitors fields for potential subdivision based on pixel-level NDVI temporal dynamics; (2) a phenology estimation module (termed PhenoEst) that segments NDVI time series into growing seasons and extracts essential phenology stages (e.g., planting and harvesting dates) for each season; and (3) a crop type discrimination module (termed CropDis) that utilizes extracted phenology information as input features to discriminate between different crop types. Evaluated on 1,000 randomly selected fields in northern Saudi Arabia, our framework achieved overall accuracies of 93.38%, 96.40%, and 94.39% for WithinFDy, PhenoEst, and CropDis modules, respectively. When applied nationwide in 2020, the framework revealed valuable insights. In terms of field management, 21.8% of the fields were divided into two distinct subfields, featuring different planting and harvesting dates - and sometimes crop type, while 73.2% showed consistent practices across the entire field. For seasonal dynamics, 53.4%, 36.3%, and 8.7% of fields supported crops for one, two, and three seasons annually, respectively. Main planting and harvesting activities occurred during winter seasons (November to February), with another peak observed in June. Approximately 30% of fields were under production for 5 to 6 months, and 15.7% were under production year-round. The dominant crop types in 2020 were fodder crops (e.g. alfalfa and Rhodes grass), followed by winter crops like winter wheat. Our methodology represents a substantial advancement over previous approaches, expanding applicability beyond crops with regular growth patterns. The results not only enrich agricultural datasets in Saudi Arabia but also hold promise for enhancing food and water security studies globally.

How to cite: Li, T., Lopez Valencia, O. M., Johansen, K., and McCabe, M. F.: Mapping the nationwide crop phenology stages in Saudi Arabia using machine learning and Sentinel-2 NDVI time series, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-5171, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-5171, 2024.

X1.86
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EGU24-5448
Linda See, Orysia Yashchun, Zoriana Romanchuk, Juraj Balkovič, Rastislav Skalsky, Žiga Malek, Dmitry Schepaschenko, Andre Deppermann, Tamás Kriztin, and Petr Havlík

There is currently a lack of high-resolution pan-European information on land use management, especially in terms of how intensively and extensively cropland and grassland are managed. This is partly due to the lack of ground-based information, which is needed to downscale these types of management practices (some of which are captured in different types of agricultural censuses and surveys) as well as the inability of remote sensing to capture different kinds of land use. This type of information is needed for economic land use modelling and for assessing policy impacts, such as the latest reforms from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and other European Union (EU) Green Deal targets. These types of analyses are undertaken using economic land use models such as GLOBIOM and CAPRI, which is one of the main aims of the Horizon Europe funded LAMASUS project (https://www.lamasus.eu/).  

This presentation will provide an overview of the ongoing developments in creating high-resolution spatially explicit layers on agricultural and grassland management for Europe to support the LAMASUS project. The proposed cropland and grassland management classes will be outlined along with the methodology for how they have been implemented using existing data layers from remote sensing, statistical data from Eurostat, the Joint Research Centre of the EU, agricultural ministries, and other sources. One of the key challenges is ensuring that the high-resolution data matches official statistics at the national (and NUTS2 level where available) so that they can be used by the economic land use models in LAMASUS. A method will be presented for how this is achieved using priors in the form of integrated layers of cropland and grassland probability created from existing high-resolution remotely sensed input layers.

 

How to cite: See, L., Yashchun, O., Romanchuk, Z., Balkovič, J., Skalsky, R., Malek, Ž., Schepaschenko, D., Deppermann, A., Kriztin, T., and Havlík, P.: Improving high-resolution spatial information on agricultural land use management in Europe for economic land use modelling and the assessment of policy impacts, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-5448, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-5448, 2024.

X1.87
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EGU24-6031
Mehmet Ozgur Turkoglu, Helge Aasen, Konrad Schindler, and Jan Dirk Wegner

Previous works on vegetation mapping from optical satellite images use training and test datasets within the same year. We think that from a practical perspective, this experimental setting is not realistic due to (i) crop growth changes from year to year (also like from region to region), therefore test assessment does not fully reflect real-world cases and (ii) obviously it is not possible to apply the algorithm current year if it is trained with current year data. Thus a cross-year experimental setting should be de-facto for this line of research then we can readily apply developed algorithms in real-world applications. In this work, we evaluate a state-of-the-art crop classification method from optical satellite (Sentinel-2) image time series data - a hierarchical multi-stage deep learning method, i.e. ms-convSTAR which we introduced in [1] - in a cross-year experimental setting. The deep learning model is trained with the entire 2021 crop dataset in Switzerland and during test time it is applied to the 2022 crop dataset. Our results show that our method performs reasonably well in this experimental setting achieving ~83% accuracy at the pixel level. 

References

[1] Turkoglu, M. O., D'Aronco, S., Perich, G., Liebisch, F., Streit, C., Schindler, K., & Wegner, J. D. (2021). Crop mapping from image time series: Deep learning with multi-scale label hierarchies. Remote Sensing of Environment, 264, 112603.

How to cite: Turkoglu, M. O., Aasen, H., Schindler, K., and Wegner, J. D.: Country-wide Cross-Year Crop Mapping from Optical Satellite Image Time Series, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-6031, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-6031, 2024.

X1.88
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EGU24-7646
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ECS
Sophie Reinermann, Anne Schucknecht, Ursula Gessner, Sarah Asam, Ralf Kiese, and Claudia Kuenzer

Grassland ecosystems shape the landscape in large parts of Germany and provide numerous services that are relevant for the carbon cycle, water quality and biodiversity, apart from being the main source of fodder for the dairy and meat industry. Annual yields between grasslands vary strongly because their productivity depends on the management and environmental conditions. Information on grassland yields are not freely and extensively available in Germany but would be relevant for comprehensive assessments of grassland ecosystem services including the impact of extreme events on yields. With satellite remote sensing, grassland productivity and yields can be extensively and multi-temporally estimated. Within our project (SUSALPS, https://www.susalps.de/en/), grassland yields are estimated in a grassland-dominated area in southern Germany using ground-truth measurements of above-ground biomass and Sentinel-2 time series data. Field data was collected on 12 differently used grassland parcels in the region in 2019-2021. We aim to overcome limitations of previous research – caused by the heterogenous nature of grasslands due to varying use intensities in Germany – by including management information and a large gradient of field samples trough multiple measurements throughout the vegetation growth period into the modelling. We tested empirical model based on the field and accompanying Sentinel-2 data (n=74) to estimate grassland biomass. The best model was applied to all available Sentinel-2 scenes in the region in 2019. Random Forest and Artificial Neural Network models showed the highest accuracy (R²cv = 0.7). A novel input feature was the mowing date which is available as 6-year dataset (Reinermann et al. 2022 & 2023). Next, the multi-temporal biomass estimations are aggregated to annual yield estimates to enable spatially discrete and multi-annual yields are estimated and compared (2018-2023). First results show that the inclusion of mowing date information supports the reliable estimation of grassland yields and its assessment on fine spatial scale substantially. In the future, the results are coupled with modelled plant biodiversity information to gain a complementary picture on grassland ecosystem services.

How to cite: Reinermann, S., Schucknecht, A., Gessner, U., Asam, S., Kiese, R., and Kuenzer, C.: Estimation of annual grassland yields with Sentinel-2 time series, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-7646, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-7646, 2024.

X1.89
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EGU24-9284
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ECS
Simon Baumgartner, Anina Gilgen, Rahel Felder, Felix Herzog, Philippe Jeanneret, Robin Séchaud, Stevan Paunovic, Dario Lucatoni, Remi Cluset, Anne Mottet, and Lutz Merbold

The "Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation" (TAPE) was developed under the coordination of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) to assess the sustainability performance of agroecosystems. The assessment is mainly based on a 2-3-hour farm interview, in which a wide variety of data is collected. The environmental dimension has so far been represented in TAPE by two simple indices: A soil index, which is based on a visual analysis of the soil, and a biodiversity index, which is primarily based on the Gini-Simpson index of crops grown and animals kept. While the TAPE biodiversity index is crucial, it does not yet take into account so-called unplanned biodiversity, i.e. the impact of on-farm management practices on wild species. We have therefore expanded TAPE to include this aspect.

Direct surveys of wildlife biodiversity in the field were not possible in TAPE, as this would have far exceeded the time required for data collection. Consequently, we based the newly developed biodiversity index on the indirect European BioBio method. The new index consists of ten indicators, which can take values between 0 and 100% and be aggregated to form the overall index. Examples of these indicators are field size, nitrogen application or stocking density. The new index was developed and tested on selected Swiss farms, where the comparison with a much more comprehensive and time-consuming method showed a positive correlation (r = 0.56, p-value = 0.009).

The new index has so far been used in Switzerland (21 farms) and in Kenya (103 farms). In Switzerland, the field size and land use change indicators performed best (values > 75%), while the indicators tree habitat, nitrogen application, field operations and grazing intensity performed poorly (values > 50%). In Kenya, the field size, land use change, pesticide and field operations indicators reached values above 75%, while the tree habitat, grazing intensity and semi-natural habitat indicators had values clearly below 50%.

How to cite: Baumgartner, S., Gilgen, A., Felder, R., Herzog, F., Jeanneret, P., Séchaud, R., Paunovic, S., Lucatoni, D., Cluset, R., Mottet, A., and Merbold, L.: An improved biodiversity index for FAO’s Tool of Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE), EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-9284, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-9284, 2024.

X1.90
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EGU24-9951
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ECS
Yuanyuan Di, Jinwei Dong, Ping Fu, and Stuart Marsh

Remote sensing technology presents unique possibilities for monitoring agricultural systems, providing accurate information like crop type distribution, crop planting area, crop rotation, etc. Extracted from remote sensing imagery, previous efforts generally produce crop information based on pixel-based classification strategy without considering spatial context of objects. Further incorporation of object-based image analysis in crop type mapping could improve mapping accuracy and reduce disturbance caused by uncertainties caused by pixel-based methods. Here we aim to combine the advantages of pixel-based and object-based approaches for further improving crop type maps over Northeast China based on Sentinel-2 imagery, simple non-iterative clustering (SNIC), random forest classifier and Google Earth Engine platform. The results showed in the majority of cropland, object-based mapping results had higher accuracies and reduced obvious errors at parcel level. Overall accuracies improved by 0.5% and the Kappa coefficient improved by 9% in Sanjiang Plain. However, soybean and maize intercropping with small parcels could be ignored in object-based methods when clustering objects. Therefore, an integration of pixel and object-based approaches was adopted considering different landscapes and patch areas to generate an unprecedentedly accurate crop type map in Northeast China.

How to cite: Di, Y., Dong, J., Fu, P., and Marsh, S.: A hybrid framework for improved crop mapping over a large scale by combining pixel-based and object-based approaches, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-9951, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-9951, 2024.

X1.91
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EGU24-11426
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ECS
Enhanced monitoring of rubber plantations in complex tropical regions: Integrating all Landsat/Sentinel data for precise classification and stand age estimation
(withdrawn after no-show)
Bangqian Chen, Jingwei Dong, Weili Kou, Zhixiang Wu, Chuan Yang, and Guishui Xie
X1.92
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EGU24-15207
Ground truth generation for crop classification using Street View
(withdrawn)
Chandan Nath, Alfiya Ismagilova, Renu Singh, Ishan Deshpande, and Alok Talekar
X1.93
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EGU24-15697
Nikita Saxena, Abigail Annkah, Ishan Deshpande, Alex Wilson, and Alok Talekar

In the domain of precision agriculture, land-use planning, and resource management, the precise delineation of field boundaries is pivotal for informed decision-making. The dynamic nature of agricultural landscapes, particularly in smallholder farming, introduces seasonal changes that pose challenges to accurately identify and update field boundaries. The conventional approach of relying on high-resolution imagery for this purpose proves to be economically impractical on a seasonal basis. We propose a framework that utilizes a spatiotemporal series of medium-resolution public imagery (e.g., Sentinel-2) in conjunction with an outdated high-resolution image as a reference for super-resolution reconstruction. The developed methodology incorporates super-resolution techniques to enhance the spatial resolution while simultaneously performing semantic segmentation at the higher resolution. We evaluate the proposed model's performance in predicting seasonal field boundaries at a pan-India level. The validity of these findings is established through assessment by a team of human annotators.

Our approach aims to offer a scalable spatiotemporal solution for accurate field boundary identification at a national level by combining information from different satellites at different resolutions.