Advanced Earth Observation Technologies for Sustainable Irrigation Water Management

A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Agricultural Water Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 August 2025 | Viewed by 104

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, 80055 Portici, Italy
Interests: remote sensing; irrigation scheduling; evapotranspiration; digital and precision agriculture; soil-crop-atmosphere; soil water balance; irrigation water accounting; machine learning; irrigated areas mapping

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the growing population and the consequent need to extract more resources for food production, sustainable irrigation management has become a priority for modern agriculture. To address this issue, it is essential to adopt sustainable water management by aiming for greater efficiency in the use of water in agriculture, through integrated management practices. In this view, Earth Observation (EO) techniques offer valuable tools for monitoring and managing irrigation systems across different spatial and temporal scales.

In this Special Issue, we invite the submission of papers on the development of operational tools and services utilizing Earth Observation data for managing water resources in agriculture, with a particular emphasis on optimizing irrigation. Integrated approaches involving active and passive sensors, in situ sensors, and modelling techniques are increasingly being implemented to manage agricultural water resources effectively. This Special Issue aims to demonstrate that research advancements are being translated into practical applications that address everyday practices and problem-solving, from the farm level to the basin scale. Specific topics include but are not limited to:

  • Utilizing EO data for modeling crop evapotranspiration and water requirements,
  • Assessing water demand and irrigation water volumes at various spatial scales,
  • Applying Machine Learning and EO data for mapping irrigated areas,
  • Employing multi-spectral, hyperspectral, thermal, and SAR imaging in irrigated agriculture,
  • Developing indicators for crop water stress and soil moisture in irrigated agricultural systems,
  • Harnessing virtual constellation and multi-platform data fusion for supporting irrigation management.

Dr. Oscar Rosario Belfiore
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • earth observation
  • irrigation water management
  • water balance
  • surface energy balance
  • soil-plant-atmosphere interactions
  • precision agriculture
  • machine learning
  • irrigated areas mapping
  • irrigation scheduling
  • irrigation water accounting

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Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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