Title: Evaluation of a satellite drought indicator approach and its potential for agricultural drought prediction and crop loss assessment. The case of BEACON project

Authors: Emanuel Lekakis; Agathoklis Dimitrakos; Evangelos Oikonomopoulos; Gregory Mygdakos; Ifigeneia-Maria Tsioutsia; Stylianos Kotsopoulos

Addresses: AgroApps PC, 54-56 Themistokli Sofouli, Thessaloniki, 54655, Greece ' AgroApps PC, 54-56 Themistokli Sofouli, Thessaloniki, 54655, Greece ' AgroApps PC, 54-56 Themistokli Sofouli, Thessaloniki, 54655, Greece ' AgroApps PC, 54-56 Themistokli Sofouli, Thessaloniki, 54655, Greece ' AgroApps PC, 54-56 Themistokli Sofouli, Thessaloniki, 54655, Greece ' AgroApps PC, 54-56 Themistokli Sofouli, Thessaloniki, 54655, Greece

Abstract: BEACON is a market-led project that couples earth observation (EO) with weather intelligence to deliver a toolbox for timely, cost-efficient and actionable insights for the agricultural insurance (AgI) sector. This paper provides an approach based on MODIS NDVI anomaly (NDVIA), implemented in the operational workflow of BEACON that can be used by AgI companies to improve the prediction and crop loss assessment due to drought. The aim of the study was to demonstrate the feasibility of evaluating drought impact on wheat and barley crops at parcel level, exploiting the long historical MODIS NDVI records. Correlation analysis and machine learning were used to understand the relationship between a satellite-based drought indicator and (non-)damaged parcel yield data. The moderately strong correlation results highlight the complexity in determining the crop loss in the case of drought, by taking only into account the seasonal evolution of widely used satellite derived indices, such as NDVI/NDVIA.

Keywords: BEACON; claim-based agricultural insurance; AgI; drought damage; drought impact; MODIS NDVI; NDVI anomaly; NDVIA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSAMI.2022.123039

International Journal of Sustainable Agricultural Management and Informatics, 2022 Vol.8 No.1, pp.40 - 63

Received: 02 Apr 2021
Accepted: 17 Jul 2021
Published online: 23 May 2022 *

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