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Imaging vineyards from space will benefit Europe's wines (Forwarded)



 
 
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Old July 7th 03, 09:16 PM
Andrew Yee
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Default Imaging vineyards from space will benefit Europe's wines (Forwarded)

ESA News
http://www.esa.int

7 July 2003

Imaging vineyards from space will benefit Europe's wines

Space data are set to become an added ingredient in future European wines. ESA
is contributing Earth Observation data and expertise to a European
Commission-backed project called Bacchus.

The aim is to chart the continent's vineyards in unprecedented detail, and
provide vine growers with information tools to improve production management and
guarantee grape quality.

From Bordeaux to Frascati, there is good reason why wines are always known for
their home region. As any connoisseur will explain, a grape's distinctive
flavour is derived from localised characteristics such as soil type,
microclimate, altitude and the slope of the ground. So wine-growing regions (and
sub-regions within them) are legally demarcated as an assurance of quality --
known as Controlled Origin Denominations (Appellation d'Origine in France,
Denominazione d'Origine Controllata in Italy).

Europe is the most important wine producer in the world, and the Common Market
Organisation for Wine (CMO) requires all wine-producing EU states to keep a
register of vine production. However there is no standardised way of doing this:
it is variously -- and painstakingly -- done by a combination of fieldwork, vine
producer interviews and photo-interpretation of aerial photography.

In an attempt to create a more standardised alternative, the part-EC-funded
Bacchus consortium has been started by some 14 public and private bodies from
four wine-producing countries: Italy, France, Spain and Portugal.

"A strong point of the Bacchus consortium is the very complete range of involved
users we have, covering different aspects of vine cultivation," said Manuel Bea
of prime contractor Geosys. "In Spain and Portugal the users are governmental
organisations involved in applying EC policy, while in France and Italy users
belong to the wine production sector. The French GeoDASEA offers technical
support to grape producers at a regional level. The Italian users are consortia
of the Controlled Origin Denomination areas for Prosecco and Frascati, and the
last user is a private French organisation which federates 2200 wine co-operatives."

The intention behind Bacchus is to use georeferenced aerial and satellite images
to create a specialised geographical information system (GIS) tool for use in
vine production. As well as enabling improved record keeping and statistics,
this GIS tool will also help with land management. All relevant data on any
given wine-growing region -- vine inventories, administrative boundaries, slope
angle relative to the Sun -- can be made integrated into GIS and made easily
accessible to vineyard managers. Meteorological data can also be added to the
system.

For improved vineyard management, all these distinct data sets can be digitally
combined together -- a process like overlaying maps on top of one another -- to
obtain new and useful information, such as locating optimal areas for particular
vine types, or where best to expand a given Controlled Origin Denomination's
boundaries, or conversely identifying the least productive land so it can be
grubbed up.

Automated vineyard recognition

French research institute Cemagref has the demanding role of developing pattern
recognition technology for the automatic recognition of vineyards within
satellite or aerial images.

"We have previous experience of image processing for agricultural applications,"
said Michel Deshayes of Cemagref. "For instance by textural analysis --
automated recognition of distinctive structural elements -- we have been able to
distinguish weeds from crops on aerial images. We also worked on a robot that
killed weeds with electricity to lessen use of pesticides, using leaf shape to
identify weeds in close-up.

"For Bacchus our approach will be to combine both textural and shape
information. At the scale of high-resolution satellite or aerial images,
vineyard structure induces specific periodic patterns and spatial distributions."

The Bacchus project began earlier this year with a survey of pilot sites,
including Italy's Frascati vineyards, where vines have been cultivated since
Roman times -- now home to ESA's Earth Observation centre ESRIN. The sites are
being regularly re-imaged to acquire data on how vineyards develop through the
growing season.

High-resolution multispectral satellite images of up to 0.65 m resolution are
being acquired, as well as aerial photographs at higher resolution still --
simulating next generation Earth Observation satellite data soon to become
available. The aerial cameras are fitted with GPS so their photos can be
precisely geo-referenced for integration within GIS systems.

The Frascati Controlled Origin Denomination consortium represents some 700 grape
producers and 30 wine makers in the area. "We know this project is the way to go
in the future," said Fulvio Comandini of the consortium. "Bacchus will give us
-- and all the other Controlled Origin Denominations across the country too -- a
customised information system to more precisely manage our entire system of
production and also a fully objective means of guaranteeing the quality of our
wine to the market."

For ESA the Bacchus project represents the agency's first involvement in the
emerging precision farming area, using Earth Observation data to improve
agricultural efficiency.

Related links

* Bacchus Project
http://www.bacchus-project.com
* Precision Farming
http://www.precision-farming.com
* Geosys
http://www.geosys.fr

IMAGE CAPTIONS:

[Image 1:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMO..._index_1.html]
A view of the Champagne vineyards in Verzenay, south of Reims, eastern France,
is seen May 17, 2002. Champagne can be made up of wines from three different
grapes: the Chardonnay, a white grape, the Pinot Noir and the Pinot Meunier,
dark grapes, from one, two or all three of the wines from these grapes. The art
of Champagne-making comes in finding a harmonious balance among them, but the
beverage must be produced in the Champagne region, from grapes grown here.(AP
Photo/Michel Spingler)

Credits: Associated Press, AP

[Image 2:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMO...html#subhead1]
This QuickBird satellite image shows the distinctive regular lines of Frascati
vineyards at 0.61 m resolution. French research institute Cemagref are working
on pattern recognition software to automatically recognise vines from satellite
or aerial images.

[Image 3:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMO...html#subhead2]
Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, first cultivated in Bordeaux in France. Europe is the
world's most important wine-producing area

Credits: Associated Press, AP

[Image 4:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMO...html#subhead4]
A satellite image of Frascati imported into a geographic information system and
overlaid with other data. Vineyards are shown as green polygons while the pink
rectangles are buildings marked on previous maps of the area. Any construction
not overlaid with pink is therefore new. Used in this way, Bacchus could track
land use changes in vine-growing areas throughout Europe.

[Image 5:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMO...html#subhead5]
This satellite-derived image shows local slope face direction, overlaid with the
limits of the Frascati Denominazione d'Origine Controllata. The 'hottest'
reddish colours face the most south, and therefore get more Sun exposure, while
'cooler' colours face towards the north. Such information could be imported into
the proposed Bacchus geographical information system to permit vinegrowers to
estimate optimal sites to cultivate particular grape species.


 




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