Search

Accurately estimating latent heat flux (LE) is crucial for achieving efficiency in irrigation. It is a fundamental component in determining the actual evapotranspiration (ETa), which in turn, quantifies the amount of water lost that needs to be adequately compensated through irrigation. Empirical and physics-based models have extensive input data and site-specific limitations when estimating the LE. In contrast, the emergence of data-driven techniques combined with remote sensing has shown promising results for LE estimation with minimal and easy-to-obtain input data. This paper evaluates two machine learning-based approaches for estimating the LE. The first uses climate data, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Land Surface Temperature (LST), while the second uses climate data combined with raw satellite bands. In-situ data were sourced from a flux station installed in our study area. The data include air temperatures (Ta), global solar radiation (Rg), and measured LE for the period 2015-2018. The study uses Landsat 8 as a remote sensing data source. At first, 12 raw available bands were downloaded. The LST is then derived from thermal bands using the Split Window algorithm (SW) and the NDVI from optical bands. During machine learning modeling, the CatBoost model is fed, trained, and evaluated using the two data combination approaches. Cross-validation of 3-folds gave an average RMSE of 27.54 W.nr2 using the first approach and 27.05 W.nr2 using the second approach. Results raise the question: Do we need additional computational layers when working with remote sensing products combined with machine learning? Future work is to generalize the approach and test it for other applications such as soil moisture retrieval, and yield prediction.

Smart management of weather data is an essential step toward implementing sustainability and precision in agriculture. It represents an important input for numerous tasks, such as crop growth, development, yield, and irrigation scheduling, to name a few. Advances in technology allow collecting this weather data from heterogeneous sources with high temporal resolution and at low cost. Generating and using these data in their raw form makes no sense, and therefore implementing adequate infrastructure and tools is necessary. For that purpose, this paper presents a smart weather data management system evaluated using data from a meteorological station installed in our study area covering the period from 2013 to 2020 at a half-hourly scale. The proposed system makes use of state-of-the-art statistical methods, machine learning, and deep learning models to derive actionable insights from these raw data. The general architecture is made up of four layers: data acquisition, data storage, data processing, and application layers. The data sources include real-time sensors, IoT devices, reanalysis data, and raw files. The data are then checked for errors and missing values using a proposed method based on ERA5-Land reanalysis data and deep learning. The resulting coefficient of determination (R2) and Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) for this method were 0.96 and 0.04, respectively, for the scaled air temperature estimate. The MongoDB NoSQL database is used for storage thanks to its ability to deal with real-world big data. The system offers various services such as (i) weather time series forecasts, (ii) visualization and analysis of meteorological data, and (iii) the use of machine learning to estimate the reference evapotranspiration (ET0) needed for efficient irrigation. To this, the platform uses the XGBoost model to achieve the precision of the Penman–Monteith method while using a limited number of meteorological variables (air temperature and global solar radiation). Results for this approach give R2 = 0.97 and RMSE = 0.07. This system represents the first incremental step toward implementing smart and sustainable agriculture in Morocco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is focused on developing an AI model that utilizes multispectral camera data from the Souss-Massa region. The model aims to estimate the yield and identify a range of diseases in Argan trees through meticulous on-field investigations. Initially, the work is focused on understanding the resistance of Argan plants against different diseases, based on non-irrigated and irrigated Argan trees as well as planted ones. The results show that disease resistance is high in the case of non-irrigated Argan trees and low in the case of irrigated trees. In addition, we conducted a detailed study of the Argan trees to provide a comprehensive view of the plant’s health. Utilizing machine-learning techniques, the yield estimation model suggests that it is possible to achieve up to 97% accuracy in yield estimation, processing data at an impressive rate of 33 images per second. After careful consideration and analysis, we have concluded that machine counting is the most suitable technique for Argan plants. Machine counting and disease detection offer high precision, fast and efficient data processing and cost-effectiveness. Additionally, it is less labour-intensive and can be easily integrated into the existing production process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the effects of an optimized sowing calendar for wheat over a surface irrigation scheme in the semi-arid region of Haouz (Morocco) on irrigation water requirements, crop growth and development and on yield. For that, a scenario-based simulation approach based on the covariance matrix adaptation–evolution strategy (CMA-ES) was proposed to optimize both the spatiotemporal distribution of sowing dates and the irrigation schedules, and then evaluate wheat crop using the 2011–2012 growing season dataset. Six sowing scenarios were simulated and compared to identify the most optimal spatiotemporal sowing calendar. The obtained results showed that with reference to the existing sowing patterns, early sowing of wheat leads to higher yields compared to late sowing (from 7.40 to 5.32 t/ha). Compared with actual conditions in the study area, the spatial heterogeneity is highly reduced, which increased equity between farmers. The results also showed that the proportion of plots irrigated in time can be increased (from 40% to 82%) compared to both the actual irrigation schedules and to previous results of irrigation optimization, which did not take into consideration sowing dates optimization. Furthermore, considerable reduction of more than 40% of applied irrigation water can be achieved by optimizing sowing dates. Thus, the proposed approach in this study is relevant for irrigation managers and farmers since it provides an insight on the consequences of their agricultural practices regarding the wheat sowing calendar and irrigation scheduling and can be implemented to recommend the best practices to adopt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]