Use of Remote Sensing for Crop Yield and Area Estimates in the Southern of Brazil

The purpose of this paper is to describe the main actions undertaken by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGSUniversidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul) in activities related to crop monitoring and forecasting in Rio Grande do Sul State, the most southern state in Brazil. First the importance of agricultural activity is placed in the context of the state, showing grain production data. A short description of UFRGS and the group of researchers is also presented. Then several actions developed by the University to monitor crops and forecast harvests are presented, by discussing the methodology and main results of project GeoSafras (GeoHarvests). This is a multi-institutional nationwide project coordinated by the National Supply Company (CONABCompanhia Nacional de Abastecimento). From the methodological standpoint, the project uses a set of techniques and methods, some already tested and others under development, in the fields of remote sensing, geoprocessing and agrometeorology. In this paper as an illustration, some results are presented using soybean crop. Finally, a report is made on actions in cooperation with Joint Research Centre (JRC), the results of which were presented at a JRC workshop in Montevideo, comparing ECMWF (European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting) simulated data to observed data at several surface meteorological stations, as well as, evaluating the use of simulated data in the soybean yield model in Rio Grande do Sul State.