Remote Sensing: Monitoring Droughts and Overexposure to Radiation in Plantain and Vegetable Crops, in the Adjoining Agricultural Fields Between the South of Naranjito and the North of Barranquitas in Puerto Rico

Overview

With the betterment of healthcare and life expectancy, global food demand will increase, and fertile land will be adapted to accommodate a growing population. As a result, agriculture will become an increasingly necessary and laborious process when the repercussions of climate change and fluctuations disturb the growing season. Having a historically agricultural economy in the tropics, Puerto Rico faces heat waves, droughts, prolonged exposure to radiation, and high-impact natural phenomenon. These conditions can limit a harvests’ output by negatively impacting crops’ growth process and performance. For this reason, this research intends to use Landsat 8 satellite imagery to analyze the greenness, condition, and health of the plantain and vegetable crops found between Naranjito and Barranquitas in Puerto Rico. Thus, it explores the impact that overexposure to radiation and droughts have on some high-demand crops through NDVI, a mathematical representation of plant health based on its reflection of sunlight. Since plants are photosynthetic organisms, they tend to absorb some of the wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, but they emit other bands as well. Hence, QGIS, an open- source software, is used to harness the bands associated with plant health. Additionally, elevations and slopes were studied as decisive variables in the acquisition of minerals and nutrients. Elevated fields, as in Barranquitas, showed abiotic stress indices, while Naranjito, being in decline, had pockets of healthy biomass. Therefore, this research enables a cost-effective tool that any farmer with a computer and an internet connection can use to monitor their large-scale crops’ performance with far-reaching imagery.

Competition history

• JSHS 2022 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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