Walloon Agricultural Research Centre

Development of an agri-environmental monitoring system for the Chinese province Heilongjiang

Context

In 1998, a two-year research program was set up in Belgium aiming to adapt the European Crop Growth Monitoring System (CGMS) developed by the JRC to Belgian conditions. Before the beginning of the project, Belgium had no yield and production forecasting system, probably because of the weak impact of the country on the European agricultural product market price. Such a system is however a very useful tool for Belgium agricultural statistics and should allow farm producers and food traders to enhance their stock strategies. At the same time, Belgium was searching for a rapid and reliable method to assess the extent of calamity zones due to excep-tional climatic conditions (like drought, frost,…). After two years of research, the programme led to a semi-operational adaptation for our country (B-CGMS). The promising results of the first project favoured the granting of new subsidies for a second two-year project for which the main objective was this time to adapt the B-CGMS system to the Chinese province of Heilongjiang (H-CGMS) and to continue the development of this Belgian adaptation. The main originalities of the 2 systems (B-CGMS and H-CGMS) in comparison with the European model (CGMS) concern mainly the improvement of spatial scale, the integration of remote sensing data and, for B-CGMS, the integration of the crop acreages. In the beginning of the year 2003, a new bilateral project with the Chinese province of Heilongjiang has been initiated. The main objective is to develop an integrated and multifunc-tional agri-environmental monitoring system combining different types of inputs and the results provided by CGMS. This system should be able to assist decisions in agriculture, forestry or wetland management. The fundamental idea is that the same resources (inputs and models) can be useful for many different applications. In line with the previous collaboration, the emphasis will remain on agricultural crop monitoring and yield forecasting. However, the system will also be extended to the monitoring of drought stress, the mapping of land use and, if relevant data are available, to the monitoring of phenomena such as forest fires or dust storms.

Objectives

The general objective of this bilateral project consists in the development, implementation and operation of a multi-purpose agri-environmental monitoring system for the Chinese province Heilongjiang. The system will be devised as a general data provision tool to assist in various types of planning, forecasting and decision making in the domains of agriculture, forestry, wetland and environmental monitoring. The project comprises the following objectives: - Collection and integration of all required geographical inputs on natural resources, inclusive the imagery of low and high resolution earth observation sensors. - Extension of the potentials and applicability of the EU-developed Crop Growth Monitoring System (CGMS) for the agri-environmental monitoring. - Further enhancement of the remote sensing component, inclusive the study of new sensors and the detailed crop and land use mapping of two test areas in Heilongjiang. - Systematic operation of the monitoring system, timely generation of all required inputs and outputs, development of the necessary analytical tools and dissemination of the results through dedicated bulletins and/or Internet websites. - Practical exploitation of the system in the fields of agricultural crop yield and production forecasting and the monitoring of various types of agri-environmental problems. - Setting up of a statistical toolbox optimizing the crop yield forecasting. - Mutual exchange of data and technologies through regular missions and training sessions in both countries. - Permanent evaluation and re-orientation of the project towards the real user demands by a Steering Committee composed of two Chinese and two European experts.

Contribution

Collection of basic data sets: Official yield statistics and yearly crop acreages. Disposition of all data via FTP: Development and maintenance of a FTP-site. Improvement & extension of CGMS: Adaptation to dual scales ; crop production forecasts ; recalibration of phenological data ; improving growth simulation for spring wheat ; generation of agri-environmental indicators. Vegetation monitoring with low resolution images : Selection of the optimum set of RS-based yield indicators. Set-up, operation & evaluation of the system : design of a suitable GIS-architecture, maintenance of the agri-environmental monitoring system. Setting-up of a statistical calibration toolbox : Development of an improved, more flexible and semi-automated system for crop yield forecasting. Training sessions in Belgium and technical missions to Heilongjiang

Partners

The project includes 3 Belgian and 1 Chinese partners. The Belgian partners are : VITO (Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek), ULg (Université de Liège) and CRA-W. The Chinese partner is HPIMS (Heilongjiang Province Institute for Meteorological Sciences).

CRAW off coordinator

TYCHON Bernard (Docteur) Université de Liège - Bâtiment FUL Avenue de Longwy, 185 B-6700 Arlon Tél : + 32 (0) 63/ 23.08.29 Fax : + 32 (0) 63/ 23.08.00 Email : tychon@ful.ac.be

Funding

Federal Scientific Policy
Institut Provincial des Sciences Météorologiques de Heilongjiang

Développement d’un système intégré de monitoring agri-environnemental pour la province Heilongjiang (Chine)