Location: Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory
Project Number: 8042-13610-030-101-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 15, 2026
End Date: Jul 14, 2027
Objective:
The Cooperator will acquire unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) observations of soil brightness temperature, surface temperature, and visible/near-infrared reflectance measurements necessary to characterize sub-grid variability within 36-km-scale areas of the Maryland Eastern Shore region and explore how this UAV data can be linked with agronomic data in the visible and near-infrared regions acquired on sensors mounted on sprayer booms from close to the ground.
Approach:
The Cooperator has previously developed multi-platform sensor capabilities required to describe field- and plot-scale variability within agricultural areas of the Eastern Shore. Likewise, the Agency has extensive experience in the processing and interpretation of coarse-scale satellite imagery. The Agency will use fine-scale data collected by the Cooperator to develop the capacity for downscaling coarse-scale satellite observations acquired from the Sentinel-1/2 and NASA Soil Moisture Active/Passive (SMAP) missions to fine spatial scales consistent with agricultural management decision making (i.e., 10 m to 100 m).