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Alabama Agriculture: Using NASA Earth Observations to Assess the Feasibility of Monitoring Water Retention in Winter and Cover CropsThis project leveraged NASA Earth observations, including Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), Landsat 9 OLI-2, Sentinel-2 Multispectral Imager, Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper, and the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG), to classify and map winter and cover crops, as well as to quantify soil water retention in northwest Alabama. Partnering with Alabama Drought Reach, the project aimed to provide data-driven insights supporting the organization’s mission of improving drought-related decision making and communication with local farmers. At the time, Alabama Drought Reach lacked field-scale data to quantify how cover crops influence soil water retention. In response, this project used satellite remote sensing and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index calculations to classify and map winter and cover crop coverage in northwestern Alabama, a region affected by variable rainfall and drought events. Results indicated that fields using cover crops exhibited higher soil water retention compared to fields without, highlighting the benefits of expanding cover cropping as a drought-resilience strategy. Limitations related to data resolution and seasonal vegetation changes were noted, but overall, the results demonstrated the feasibility of deploying NASA Earth observations for monitoring and calculating the effectiveness of winter and cover crop implementation.
Document ID
20250002857
Acquisition Source
Langley Research Center
Document Type
Other - 2024 Fall DEVELOP Tech Paper
Authors
Isaac Goldings
(Analytical Mechanics Associates (United States) Hampton, Virginia, United States)
Mikki Arimitsu
(Analytical Mechanics Associates (United States) Hampton, Virginia, United States)
Hannah Sundararajan
(Analytical Mechanics Associates (United States) Hampton, Virginia, United States)
Isabel Tate
(Analytical Mechanics Associates (United States) Hampton, Virginia, United States)
Date Acquired
March 19, 2025
Publication Date
November 22, 2024
Subject Category
Earth Resources and Remote Sensing
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: 80LARC23DA003
CONTRACT_GRANT: 80LARC23FA024
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
Technical Review
Professional Review
Keywords
cover crop
winter crop
NDVI
drought
Sentinel
Landsat
remote sensing
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