USING UAVs/DRONES AND VEGETATION INDICES IN THE VISIBLE SPECTRUM TO MONITORING AGRICULTURAL LANDS

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles UAVs or Drones have made great progress in the field of aerial surveys to study vegetation and farmland. The research focuses on developing smart systems for managing agricultural fields, thus facilitating decision-making, increasing agricultural productivity, improving profitability and protecting the environment. The paper highlights the ability of drones to distinguish agricultural land intended for cultivation and classified as deserted or cultivated or in the germination stage. For the first time in the Nineveh governorate, a Phantom 4 DJI UAV images were used, in addition to using the spatialized Pix4Dfielde program to process these images. Four types of the standard agricultural indices that rely on the visible spectrum have been used (Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index (VARI), Triangular Greenness Index (TGI), Synthetic Normalized Differences Vegetation Index (S-NDVI) and Visible Difference Vegetation Index (VDVI)) to test UAVs images and to categorize different types of agricultural land. The results showed that when using the S-NDVI and VDVI indicators, the values 0.16 and 0.14 appeared respectively in certain areas, which indicates the presence and integrity of vegetation cover, unlike other regions, whose indicators showed 0.010 and -0.004, respectively, which indicate that the plant has a bad condition or its absence at all.  All results finding in this research reflect and confirm the validity of using UAVs images for agricultural field management and development.