Abstract
Erosion is a major problem on agricultural lands in Europe. Erosion measurement tools have traditionally been focused on delocalized quantification but without mapping the real places inside the basin where the erosion took effect. In this article, we use new space missions, such as Sentinel-1, and the opportunity they offer to obtain SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) images with high frequency, resolution, range, and, above all, availability to enable the application of techniques, like differential interferometry, in new fields. We propose to measure ground deformation caused by water and tillage erosion in small agricultural basins using TopSAR (Terrain Observation with Progressive Scans SAR, Synthetic Aperture Radar) images acquired by the Sentinel-1 mission, after previously verifying the accuracy of these measurements through comparison with measurements from a LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) system. The results of this work confirm the potential of monitoring erosion in agricultural basins with differential interferometry over Sentinel-1 TopSAR images. Its capabilities have been successfully tested in different conditions related to agricultural tasks without precipitation or storm events. This technique makes it possible to study both water and tillage erosion and sedimentation processes and even to test the efficiency of anti-erosion measures in the field or to verify the results of different management practices over time.
Highlights
Europe’s agricultural land, both active and in disuse, is substantially affected by erosion [1,2,3,4,5] from two main sources: water and tillage [6,7]
Water erosion is usually observed in lower, concave slope positions following the drainage network, while tillage erosion tends to be found on higher, convex slope positions following the direction of tillage
No deformations were recorded in the terrain surface, as was expected from the lack of tillage or water erosion, so differential interferometry is not affected by vegetation, such as winter cereal crops, because of the wavelength of the C-Band microwaves used
Summary
Europe’s agricultural land, both active and in disuse, is substantially affected by erosion [1,2,3,4,5] from two main sources: water and tillage [6,7]. The rate of tillage erosion may be much greater than water erosion [6,7]. Initial research into erosion measurement tools focused on delocalized quantification, such as total material lost by basins [8], but without mapping the real places inside the basin where the erosion took effect. In the search for a methodology without these constraints, airborne, Agronomy 2021, 11, 2075 proposed [17] but had availability and price drawbacks. In the search for a methodology without these constraints, airborne, full-waveform LIDAR systems offered remote sensing data to model erosion processes but was expensive and had limited coverage and low visit frequency [18]
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