Comparison of two modeling approaches to simulate rice production in the Camargue region using Sentinel 2 data

International audience; The assessment of yield variability at the territory scale is often difficult due to the lack of knowledge on various factors involved, e.g., the agricultural practices of farmers and phenological calendars. Remote sensing can help to provide precise and timely information on crops particularly with the unprecedented amount of free Sentinel data within the Copernicus programme. This study focuses on the evaluation of the contribution of the new Sentinel 2 data to provide phenological information on rice cropping systems in the Camargue region in the South-Eastern France. Dense time series of data acquired at high spatial resolution (10m) were analyzed for 2016 and 2017 and were used to map rice, compute Leaf Area Index. Various methods combining remote sensing information were compared with two different crop models (STICS and SAFY) to assess the yields. The performances are discussed according to surveys made with farmers.