How the United States Department of Agriculture is Using Satellite Needs Working Group Data to Support Agricultural Resilience
Region Americas
Summary
The Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG) is an interagency effort to assess the satellite data needs of U.S. federal agencies through a biennial survey. The NASA SNWG Implementation Team (NSITE) identifies opportunities to develop satellite-based solutions that connect NASA data to federal agency priorities in service to the American public.
In SNWG surveys, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shared the need for timely information on planting, crop development, field conditions, and harvesting. USDA uses this data to support farmer incentive programs like cover cropping, along with weekly crop progress reports which inform potential agricultural interventions, supply and demand projections, and economic outlooks.
In response to USDA and other federal agency needs, NASA developed the Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 product (HLS), which combines over 50 years of NASA Landsat data with the European Space Agency’s Sentinel satellite data. This data is used for a variety of USDA applications, including rangeland monitoring, cover crop termination validation for incentive-based programs, and tracking crop emergence to anticipate potential growth issues.
Beyond HLS, SNWG continues to support other solutions which benefit USDA and other agencies. For example, to inform crop progress reports and drought monitoring, USDA integrates NASA soil moisture data into its workflows. SNWG is currently supporting the global NASA/Indian Space Research Organization Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) soil moisture product that will allow USDA to understand soil conditions in finer detail to feed into their existing monitoring and reporting.
Through efforts like these, NASA will continue to provide USDA with detailed information on field conditions to reduce data collection costs and support decision-making that drives agricultural and economic resilience.
Value Chain Diagram
Decide
- Resilience to drought and other agricultural shocks
- Proactive interventions to prevent yield losses
- Farmers have the information they need to make the best decisions for their own operations, saving on costs and optimizing yield
- Timely, accurate agricultural data that combines satellite and field observations
- Validation of cover crop termination for farmer incentives
- A resilient, productive agricultural sector
- Stable agricultural markets
Apply
- Incentives issued for farmers who practice conservation practices like cover cropping
- Farmer advisories, such as guidance for ranchers on ideal locations for grazing livestock
- Issuing drought and crop health alerts to inform farmer decision-making
- Tracking crop progress
- Weekly crop reports based on accurate satellite data
- Tracking crop green-up dates to anticipate potential reductions in yield
Data production
- Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (optical imagery) - 30 m data for vegetation indices and crop conditions
- Crop-CASMA, and upcoming NISAR soil moisture
Sense
- Landsat 7/8
- Sentinels 1a/b and 2a
- SMAP Level 4 (soil moisture) - Soil moisture estimates at surface and root zone with 9 km resolution every 3 hrs. Derivative products used to provide soil moisture and soil moisture anomaly inputs at daily and weekly scales
- MODIS (Multispectral radiometer) - 250 m spectral reflectance data. Data available 2000 to present
- Lance MODIS Near Real-Time (Multispectral radiometer) - surface reflectance data at sub 3 hr latency.
Decision-Making Context and Needs
Through a combination of field surveys and Earth observation data, USDA assesses crop conditions and agricultural production both domestically and globally to make decisions that support resilient farming and agricultural markets, including:
- Incentive programs for soil health and resilience, including cover cropping
- After harvesting their crops for market, farmers use cover crops such as rye or barley to keep soil healthy between primary growing seasons. For farmers to qualify for cover crop incentive programs, USDA needs to verify that cover crops are terminated within a narrow window to make way for primary crops.
- Farmer advisories, such as guiding livestock to quality forage
- When drought hits, ranchers need to know exactly where they can take their cattle to graze.
- Tracking crop conditions and forecasting yield
- Green-up dates, when plants first emerge from the soil, is a key factor for predicting potential crop health and yield. This information is crucial for USDA in providing agricultural advisory support.
- Beyond HLS, USDA, NASA, and George Mason University collaboratively developed the Crop-CASMA platform to inform crop monitoring and reporting. Crop-CASMA uses 1 km (high-resolution) and 9 km (standard-resolution) NASA soil moisture data to track drought conditions or other disasters that impact crop production.
- Data from Crop-CASMA feeds into products like the U.S. Drought Monitor and the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASADE), and informs a range of decision-making, such as agricultural insurance and irrigation practices.
Earth Observation Data Products and Information
To more quickly track agricultural changes and meet other agency needs, NASA developed the Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 solution, or HLS, which seamlessly combines the longest continuous record of Earth observing data from Landsat with European Space Agency’s Sentinel satellite data. HLS provides global Earth observations every 1.6 days.
NASA Earth observation products also serve as inputs to the USDA’s Crop Condition and Soil Moisture Analytics (Crop-CASMA) application. The tool uses data from NASA’s SMAP and MODIS satellites to monitor soil moisture and crop conditions across the United States at varying spatial and temporal resolutions (see table above). USDA plans to integrate the upcoming NISAR soil moisture SNWG product into Crop-CASMA, with soil moisture data on a 200 m resolution and a minimum of two observations at a given location every 12 days.
Underlying Observations and Data Sources
- Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (optical imagery) - 30 m data for vegetation indices and crop conditions
- Crop-CASMA:
- SMAP Level 4 (soil moisture) - Soil moisture estimates at surface and root zone with 9 km resolution every 3 hrs. Derivative products used to provide soil moisture and soil moisture anomaly inputs at daily and weekly scales
- MODIS (Multispectral radiometer) - 250 m spectral reflectance data. Data available 2000 to present
- Lance MODIS Near Real-Time (Multispectral radiometer) - surface reflectance data at sub 3 hr latency.
Impacts and Benefits
By directly responding to the needs of agencies like USDA, SNWG supports tangible impacts for the American economy, including the following examples of successful pilots of HLS data:
- USDA tested the use of HLS to verify cover crop termination across 28,000 enrolled fields in Maryland and Delaware. HLS detected cover crop termination in 98% of these fields, reducing the time that the agency spends conducting in-person verifications by more than 50%.
- The USDA Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) used HLS to pilot a rangeland mapping effort across 16,000 acres (25 square miles), providing ranchers with near-daily maps showing areas most at risk for drought damage. Following a successful trial period, USDA-ARS is now expanding this service to cover more than a million acres (1,550 square miles), helping ranchers efficiently manage their cattle.
- USDA used HLS for more consistent, reliable satellite data tracking of green-up across the Corn Belt from 2018 to 2020. Following a successful pilot, USDA scaled this monitoring effort across the entire contiguous United States.
Based on USDA input, SNWG is supporting a new NISAR soil moisture product that will be integrated into Crop-CASMA to track soil moisture changes at a 200 m resolution. USDA NASS continues to use Crop-CASMA in its decision-making and plans to integrate the SNWG NISAR soil moisture product once it is available.