Chapter 5 - Remote sensing for agriculture and resource management

Abstract

Exploitation of the infinitive natural resources is an alarming issue on the plate. Therefore, estimation and swift observation of the natural resources is a need of the hour. Geospatial technological development is playing an important role to collect the information from the targeted objectives. Geospatial technological is helpful to analyze the natural resources viz., land, water, air, energy, nutrients, forest, watershed, etc. for policy and planning toward their conservation in order to achieve food, nutritional, environmental, and economic security. Agriculture is a key sector on the planet for exploitation and interfere the natural resources. For collecting reliable and timely information about the nature, the extent and geographical boundaries, temporal behavior of natural resources is the first step in the way of their monitoring, management and efficient use of them in the agriculture. Remote sensing (RS) has emerged as a powerful geospatial tool for the identification, characterization, and land marking of these resources over a larger surface area in agricultural system. It provides valuable, accurate and timely information in high spatial and spectral resolutions about the agricultural urbanization, crop use patterns, soil, water, watersheds, desertification, agroforestry, rangelands, and climatic variations and their impact on agriculture. In crop production, RS provides the spatial information of crop type and area estimation followed by assessing the yield potential, ecosystem health and proper management of insect-diseases and weeds based on the spectral reflectance of the object by using modeling and vegetative indices. Moreover, RS has a potential to study the soil system like soil characteristics, types, spatial variability, assessment of land suitability, land capability, carbon dynamics, soil moisture, land use/land cover change, soil degradation, erosion identification, and remediation for agriculture applications. RS helps to generate a precise database in short time from the field. Predication for the advance planning, yield estimation of the covering areas, crop sections, drought management help in policymaking for the better production and reduce the risk from the aberrant weather conditions. It helps in proper use and sustainable management of the costly resources in agriculture. This chapter extensively discusses the potential of RS in management of agriculture and natural resources in a sustainable manner. In this context, in India, several programs/projects such as FASAL, CAPE, NNRMS, NADAMS, IMSD, CHAMAN, etc. are effectively running for management of agricultural system in one and another way. In this context, this chapter is useful for the policymaker students, scientists, producers for the agroecosystems management and promote the advance food and environmental security targeted as one of the United National Sustainable Development Goals.