Estrazione di informazioni agronomiche tramite l'analisi dell'andamento temporale di indici vegetazionali per la mappatura automatica di aree agricole

The production of agricultural information about the status of cropping systems is being investigated by several scientific fields of research. In particular, the contribution of remote sensing can provide continuous monitoring of the agro-ecosystem, allowing the use of large-scale spatially distributed information regarding the location of crops, the seasonal dynamics and their state of health. The approach to the automatic mapping of agricultural areas, aimed at identifying the different crops, often needs external information not always available and when present often in the form of statistical averages. Satellite remote sensing, thanks to the multi-temporal monitoring, can be a useful tool for extracting update agricultural information. In this study we wanted to investigate the possibility of automatically extracting information of rice crop extension and phenology defining an algorithm that uses time series of satellite images. MODIS sensor data of the ricegrowing areas of northern Italy were analyzed to derive time series of spectral indices EVI and LSWI. The study highlighted how information on crop extension and phenology can be extrapolated from a dynamic analysis of spectral indices time series. We noticed how the dynamics of some indices, allow to differentiate rice crop from other natural and agronomical features. Secondly a careful analysis of the signal, is also able to specifically identify phenological crop information of the crop during the on-going season. This paper shows also an application of the methods proposed in the literature called analysis on the "Pareto Boundary".