Remote Sensing and Crop Models: The Work of Paul Doraiswamy From 1995-2010.

The ability to scale upward based on ground data has been a long standing principle of Dr. Paul Doraiswamy.    While it is important to have ground data, it is equally important to be able to extend that data across a large landscape.   The three primary methods of extending ground data are to use satellite imagery, to use models or to combine both.   Each research project would study at least one new item (potentially more); it could be a new satellite, new model, new location, or new crop.  While predicting crop yields was a major study area for Dr. Doraiswamy, many different approaches were taken.   Models such as EPIC which work fine in the US where there is a great deal of data, can have problems in other parts of the world where weather and soil data may not be as plentiful, so other models were used in these areas.    Satellites also have their own set of limitations, such as, overpass repeat times, pixel size versus field size and the size of the area covered by the image.    Dr. Doraiswamy also had studies in carbon sequestration and watershed modeling.  The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of many of the projects that I participated in with Dr. Paul Doraiswamy.