Mapping hailstorm damaged crop area using multispectral satellite data

• Published in: The Egyptian journal of remote sensing and space sciences 2019-04, Vol.22 (1), p.73-79
• Main Authors: Prabhakar, Mathyam, Gopinath, K.A., Reddy, A.G.K., Thirupathi, M., Rao, Ch. Srinivasa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Crop damage assessment; Hailstorm; Remote sensing
• ISSN: 1110-9823; 2090-2476
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ejrs.2018.09.001

Hailstorms cause enormous physical damage in agriculture, often result in disasters leading to widespread, sudden loss in harvestable produce, and at times entire loss to grownup orchards. Accurate area-wide crop damage assessment is a challenging task to provide timely relief to farmers. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using multispectral satellite data for mapping crop-damaged area, identification of hailstreaks, their ground track attributes using NDVI difference of pre and post-hailstorm events. Crop classification within hailstreak was performed using a multispectral, high resolution LISS-IV satellite data from IRS-Resourcesat-2. Six hailstorm-damaged streaks were examined in the study area, varying in width ranging from 3 to 8 km, and length ranging from 6 to 33 km. Maximum area damaged was in grapes, followed by sugarcane and papaya. Changes in NDVI profile of different crops in the study area was recorded, and a model was developed for estimating changes in NDVI due to hail damage. The crop classification error matrix indicated Kappa Coefficient (0.55) with an overall classification accuracy of 69.6%. This study discusses the potential of high spectral, spatial and temporal resolution remote sensing data for crop damage assessment in the aftermath of the hailstorms.