Use of Sentinel-2 images for water-need monitoring: application on an industrial tomato crop in central Italy

The improvement of remote sensing techniques can provide a significant contribution to the use of more sustainable and efficient agronomic procedures in Mediterranean regions, especially in low and medium-tech farming systems. The availability of high spatial and temporal resolution images enables to deliver information on crop coverage and plant condition, useful to evaluate seasonal trends and to estimate water and nutrient requirements. This work investigates the potential advantage of using Sentinel-2 high resolution images both to estimate tomato field internal variability and to retrieve its related crop coefficients (Kc), for a more reliable definition of water requirements during different phenological stages. Satellite data were included into an integrated irrigation management system based on soil moisture sensors, meteorological data and agrometeorological model, to monitor and evaluate the irrigation efficiency of an Italian industrial tomato farmer. The results obtained confirm the utility of NDVI-derived Kc values in areas homogeneously managed, to estimate actual evapotranspiration at operational level and the suitability of Sentinel-2 images derived information for producing a detailed estimation of plant growth and soil water content.