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Marsop

Description

MARSOP-3

MARS – Operational Activities - Phase 3
Contact  Herman Eerens Start (End) Date  01/04/2008  (31/03/2014)        
Consortium  6 partners Project Coordination

 Alterra

Website www.marsop.info
(new window)		 Related Projects  AseMARS, GMFS,
 DevCoCast, Endeleo,
 E-AGRI, ADASCIS
Keywords

 image processing, crop monitoring, food security               

 

Project Objectives
The EC started the MARS-project in 1988 to modernise and harmonise the methodologies for the collection of agro-statistical information amongst the EU member states. One of the major parts concerns the wide-scale monitoring and forecasting of the yields of the main crops. Since 2000, this activity has been outsourced under the name "MARS-OP" to a consortium of different partners led by Alterra-NL (see table). In this context VITO is responsible for the important remote sensing component. The focus is on synoptic imagery with rather coarse resolution (250m to 5km) but global coverage at a sufficiently high frequency to monitor the vegetation dynamics. The entire MARS project is co-ordinated by the Agriculture Unit of the EC-JRC in Italy. At the EU-level, the results are used by DG-AGRI to found its decisions concerning price regulations, farmer support, import/export subsidies, etc. Since the beginning in 2000 MARSOP also has an ever-increasing global component which delivers data over the main agricultural regions in the world. This information is used by DG-RELEX and DG-AIDCO to tackle issues of early warning and food security. This third phase (MARS-OP3) also has a research component dealing with the feasibility of wide-scale crop area assessment. 

Methodology

  • Data collection: Global SPOT-VGT, different sensors for Europe (NOAA- and METOP-AVHRR, TERRA-MODIS, MSG-SEVIRI), weather data, ...
  • Pre-processing up to the level of 10-daily and monthly composites; addition of more advanced vegetation indicators in different forms (images, quicklooks, databases).
  • Every dekad, all the new data for the different regions and sensors must be delivered in "real-time" to JRC and Alterra (for ingestion in the MARSOP-website).
  • Systematic quality control and annual updates of the long-term averages. 

(Expected) Results

  • MARSOP is one of the oldest contracts of TAP's AGRO-group. It regularly leads to separate subcontracts with JRC (RNA, METAMP, ASEMARS,...), provides basic inputs to other projects (GMFS, DevCoCast, ENDELEO, Asia@ITC,...) and inspires the activities of research projects (GLOBAM, GEOLAND,...)
  • MARSOP has always had an important R&D component:
    • Improved methods for the assessment of vegetation parameters, the detection of anomalies, estimation of crop areas,...
    • Software for the processing of different sensors (NOAA-AVHRR, TERRA-MODIS, MSG-SEVIRI,....) and image analysis tools (GLIMPSE and windows-GUI SPIRITS, see elsewhere),
    • Scientific publications.
  • Collaboration with many international partners all over the world.

VITO Contribution
Remote sensing component.

Partners 

  • JRC-MARS Agri4Cast (Italy)
  • JRC-MARS FOOD SEC (Italy)
  • Alterra/WUR (the Netherlands)
  • MeteoConsult (the Netherlands)
  • GISAT (Czech Republic)
  • University of Reading (United Kingdom)

Illustration

On behalf of DG-AGRI, DG-RELEX and DG-AIDCO, JRC-Ispra regularly issues agro-meteorological bulletins for different regions in the world. These are partly based on the remote sensing information delivered by VITO in the frame of the MARSOP-project.

Contact:


Herman Eerens
Tel. + 32 14 33 68 72
Fax + 32 14 32 27 95
Mobile + 32 477 41 62 02
Send a message to Herman Eerens


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