Remote Sensing for Agricultural Water Management in Developing Nations

Precision agriculture is based on innovative systems approach depending on combinations of fundamental technologies such as ground-based/ airborne/ satellite remote sensing (SRS), advanced information processing for timely crop management etc. This is consistent with sustainable agriculture. Agriculture water management helps in understanding plant water use, quantifying crop transpiration/soil evaporation; allowing to devise strategies to improve crop production, reduce unproductive water losses and prevent land/water degradation. To better understand the relationships between crop growth and water management, sufficient information on land surface can be obtained at a wide range. This book discusses the power of surveying from space; making remote sensing move from being a specialized research tool to an important asset for irrigation and water resources management for agriculture in developing Nations (DN): space faring nation or not. High cost and acquisition of required skill for utilization of SRS are some challenges faced in these nations. How to overcome the challenges faced by the DN to make SRS a simple and continual technology to be accessed and used are also discussed.