NASA Uses Satellites To Track Health of Nation’s Cropland
NASA is directing its satellites to look downwards at the American Midwest, in order to analyze crop productivity and to measure the effects of shifting croplands to biofuel production.
Christopher Potter, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, described this program at the American Geophysical Union meeting last month. His team’s research uses satellite data and computer models to track changes in greenhouse gas emissions and carbon pools resulting from the widespread agricultural transformation towards biofuels.
The satellite data is used to map the shifting vegetation cover and carbon pools in croplands. There is concern that biofuel production utilizes more crop waste, such as corn stalks, which previously would have been left in the field as fertilizer. This could result in the soil becoming less fertile for growing.
Potter stated, “If the soils become progressively depleted over several years of cropping because more and more the plant material…is being taken away for biofuel, then the thinking is that will detrimentally affect the soil carbon.”
Additionally, Potter noted that the researchers are tracking “how much is being produced on an acre by acre basis in any given crop… [and] how many new acres of a given crop are being planted, presumably for biofuel generation.”
By determining what type of crops are being planted and how the process is effecting the health of the soil and carbon emissions, Potter hopes that this work will “benefit [both] the environmental community and the growing community.”
Resource: Ethanol Producer Magazine
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