Abstract
The exploration of crop seasonality across a region offers a way to help understand the phenological spatial patterns of complex landscapes, like agricultural ones. Knowing the role of environmental factors in influencing crop phenology patterns and processes is a key aspect for understanding the impact of climate and land use changes on agricultural landscape dynamics. We identified pixels with similar phenological behavior (i.e., pheno-clusters) and compared them to the land cover map of the study area to assess the role of the land management component in controlling the phenological patterns identified. Results demonstrated that soil texture is the most important factor for permanent crops, while large amount of rainfall and high values of available water content are the main drivers in spring cultivations (i.e., irrigated crops). Scarce water availability (in terms of soil texture, low annual precipitation and high minimum temperature) represented the main driving factor for non-irrigated crops, whose phenology is characterized by summer drought and fall-winter productivity. Compared to vegetation maps that use only land cover from a single season or period, using seasonality of the NDVI time series to classify the agricultural landscape provides different and more ecologically relevant information about croplands.
Highlights
Phenology is the study of the timing of recurring biological events, the causes of their timing, and the related biotic and abiotic driving forces [1]
Patterns in crop growth are influenced by processes involving land use type, soil conditions, water availability, and regional climate [8,9], and any changes in crop phenology are closely related to these environmental controlling factors
Our analysis demonstrates the potential of phenology to assess crop growth variability and to provide a comprehensive understanding of the joint role of soil, climate, and land use on crop seasonality
Summary
Phenology is the study of the timing of recurring biological events, the causes of their timing, and the related biotic and abiotic driving forces [1]. The knowledge of timing of phenological events and their spatial variability can provide valuable data for land-use planning, crop zonation, pest control, species conservation and protection, and pollen release and its implications for human health [2]. As the impacts of climate change intensify, the need to understand the functioning of the agro-ecosystems has stimulated scientific communities to elucidate environmental controls on vegetation dynamics [5]. Phenology variables are indicated as some of the most sensitive data to climate conditions, and represent key indicators of crop growth and development and play an important role in vegetation monitoring [6]. Patterns in crop growth are influenced by processes involving land use type, soil conditions, water availability, and regional climate [8,9], and any changes in crop phenology are closely related to these environmental controlling factors
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