Satellite imagery can support water planning in the Central Valley
Most agricultural systems in California's Central Valley are purposely flexible and intentionally designed to meet the demands of dynamic markets such as corn, tomatoes and cotton. As a result, crops change annually and semiannually, which makes estimating agricultura...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources
2009-10-01
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| Series: | California Agriculture |
| Online Access: | http://calag.ucanr.edu/archive/?article=ca.v063n04p220 |
| Summary: | Most agricultural systems in California's Central Valley are purposely flexible and
intentionally designed to meet the demands of dynamic markets such as corn, tomatoes
and cotton. As a result, crops change annually and semiannually, which makes estimating
agricultural water use difficult, especially given the existing method by which agricultural
land use is identified and mapped. A minor portion of agricultural land is surveyed
annually for land-use type, and every 5 to 8 years the entire valley is completely
evaluated. We explore the potential of satellite imagery to map agricultural land
cover and estimate water usage in Merced County. We evaluated several data types and
determined that images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) onboard
NASA satellites were feasible for classifying land cover. A technique called “supervised
maximum likelihood classification” was used to identify land-cover classes, with an
overall accuracy of 75% achievable early in the growing season. |
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| ISSN: | 0008-0845 2160-8091 |