A full integrated system for agroclimatic and pest monitoring at farm and landscape scales in Campania Region

Abstract

The current agrometereological monitoring of the Campania Region is both inadequate for its users and insufficient to support the simulation of pest risk models. This work describes a cyber-physical system which has been designed to overcome these limitations, with the objective of (i) automate all the tasks involved in climatic data management, including also the intervention of the human expert when appropriate, (ii) develop dependable pest risk models and provide the input data they need, and (iii) provide real-time agrometereological data presentation. The system is built around an automatic climatic data management engine called WeatherProg, which manages data collection, quality control, data reconstruction, and digital maps production. A proper climatic database has been developed to support the operations of WeatherProg, as well as a Web application for real-time publication of data handled by the software. Pest risk models, fed by point measurements and the digital maps produced by WeatherProg, are going to be prototyped. Furthermore, a new small measurement station has been prototyped, with the aim of being low-cost and easy to relocate, in order to support the characterisation and models parameterisation for different areas. This paper illustrates the current status of the system and discusses future directions.