Grassland mowing detection tool

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This Sentinel-based Earth Observation (EO) product aims to detect mowing events at the parcel level. This product can help assess compliance with several CAP subsidy schemes or support measures. The tool identifies at the plot level if grassland mowing occurred within the Member State’s reference period and how many times if no mowing occurred or if mowing occurred within, but also outside the reference period. For each mowing detected by the algorithm, the detection period is recorded together with a confidence indicator.

Details of the product’s application in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Italy, Spain, Romania and the Netherlands are recorded in the project’s user guide for grassland mowing detection at: http://esa-sen4cap.org/sites/default/files/Sen4CAP_DDF_v1.2_GrasslandMowing.pdf

Various supporting tools to visualise and manage data as well as user manuals and learning material accompany the tool.

General description
Technical information
Relevance for monitoring and evaluation of the CAP

This tool can identify the occurrence and the period of a mowing event. This information is beneficial for monitoring the areas that take part in greening rules since:

  • diversification may exclude grassland, and thus authorities should know its area, which once detected can be calculated from the LPIS;
  • cultivated annual grasslands and permanent (multiyear) grasslands already included under the categories of ‘catch crops’ and/or ‘nitrogen-fixing crops’ at farm-level are excluded from EFA - catch crop and EFA - nitrogen-fixing crop measures;
  • land abandonment estimates exclude previously abandoned grassland fields, a service that was not explicitly assessed by the tool but is possible and very relevant for monitoring. 

Evaluators can re-use the data provided by the tool in various operations. First, the tool can contribute or cross-validate data from other sources to identify natural grassland. Natural grassland is a building block of many context and impact indicators, e.g. C.05 ‘Land Cover’, C.19 ‘Farming in Natura 2000 areas’, C.40 and I.11 ‘Enhancing carbon sequestration: Soil organic carbon in agricultural land’, and the result indicator R.14PR ‘Carbon storage in soils and biomass’.

The above-mentioned areas of use of the grassland mowing detection tool are indicative and by no means exclusive.

The tool developed algorithms and processes that allow interested stakeholders to apply it in their regions or the Member States. However, the tool's adoption requires adaptation and application of the algorithms and training to recognize mowing events at a region or the Member State. Adopting the tool assumes that the IT infrastructure is adequate and that the evaluator can use the data. The computing system’s specifications are detailed at:

http://esa-sen4cap.org/content/download-package-description

Downloading the package is open to anyone and free of charge.

In general, several conditions may limit the utility and functionality of EO. The most critical limitation is the extent of inconclusive parcels, i.e. parcels for which there is no definite crop identification. Inconclusive parcels may be due to specific EO factors such as cloudiness or the prevalence of small parcels, or difficulties in producing the algorithms to train and forecast crop type. Another difficulty is related to the effort and time needed to link the grassland mowing map with the LPIS and IACS.

Last modification date: 
08/12/2021