Vegetation status indicator tool

The vegetation status indicator can be helpful in monitoring and evaluation and for assessing the three practices related to greening payments such as:

• crop diversification - by  complementing and confirming the crop type discrimination provided by the crop type map;
• permanent grassland - by supporting the detection of mowing events during the year;
• Ecological Focus Area (EFA) – catch crop, EFA – nitrogen-fixing crop and EFA – land lying fallow - by supporting the monitoring of these agricultural practices within specific periods of the year;
• land abandonment - by supporting the evaluation of well-maintained or not abandoned parcels.

The vegetation status indicator also facilitates better monitoring by providing:

• interactive visualisations of satellite images,
• near-real-time information on the growing vegetation,
• LPIS updates, by providing information on the vegetation growing conditions to be cross-checked against LPIS polygons,
• a claimless system by supporting the decisions in terms of compliance with different schemes.

All the above factors will improve monitoring data and consequently data for evaluation due to their higher quality and time response and their ability to be communicated to evaluators and related stakeholders. For example, the tool allows mapping the spread of catch crops or nitrogen-fixing crops before and after implementing a soil conservation eco-scheme. A more detailed and nuanced assessment can be designed if this map can be combined with LPIS data. The fraction of vegetation cover as a vegetation status indicator is a variable utilised for the production of the indicator. This variable has been used together with other data to assess the erosion of grasslands in Switzerland. (See: https://land.copernicus.eu/global/sites/cgls.vito.be/files/use-cases/CGLOPS_UC_UBasel_I1.10.pdf )

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

Several factors 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 recording of the vegetation indicator. 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 estimate the indicator.