Potentialities of Sentinel Products for Monitoring Water Status of Agricultural Plots and Phenology of Cherry Trees in Southeastern France
Résumé
Recurrent droughts and water restrictions occur more and more often in Southeastern France. In this context, the evaluation of available resources according to the crop development and needs is becoming a priority. This study uses Sentinel data, for two main purposes: -i) evaluating the accuracy of new soil moisture products obtained from Sentinel 1 & 2 ((SMP)-M-2) delivered from the THEIA platform, by using continuous soil moisture measurements of an agricultural plot located in Avignon (France) -ii) assessing the potential of Sentinel 1 & 2 for monitoring soil moisture, irrigation and phenology of irrigated orchards. Significant correlations were found between in situ measurements and soil moisture products normalized with the yearly amplitude (r(2) =0.76 rmse=0.15%/%). Time series of the green fractional cover fCOVER and the fraction of absorbed radiation (fAPAR) computed from Sentinel 2 permitted to identify full flowering and end of flowering phenological stages when irrigation start.