SDI and smart technologies for the dissemination of EO-derived information on a rural district

Abstract

The Po Plain (Italy) is a complex mixture of urban and rural landscapes. Between Lombardy and Piedmont, the rural zone includes the largest rice crop area in Europe, accounting for 40% and 90% of the European and Italian rice production, respectively. The monitoring of this crop system is important by both environmental and economic points of view, because of its impacts on ecosystems, society and markets. In particular, the near real time (NRT) provision of information about crop status at farm scale is relevant for different players (i.e. farmers, consultants, policy makers, insurance companies). In this study, a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), implemented for the provision and dissemination of NRT crop status information, is presented. These information, derived from very high resolution satellite imagery, can be helpful to support loss adjusters in their workflows. The SDI architecture is designed as a seamless solution from satellite data download to presentation of added value information, which are retrieved and displayed on a mobile device, directly in the field.