Rice Yield Forecasting Using a Crop Model and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Technology.

Accurate and timely information on rice crop growth and yield helps governments and other stakeholders adapting their economic policies, enables relief organizations to better anticipate and coordinate relief efforts in the wake of a natural catastrophe, and provides technical backbone of an insurance solution where risks of yield losses from the rice smallholders are transferred to the insurance market. Such delivery of rice growth and yield information is made possible by regular earth observation using space-born Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology combined with crop modeling approach to estimate and forecast yield. Radar-based remote sensing is capable of observing rice vegetation growth irrespective of cloud coverage, an important feature given that in incidences of flooding the sky is often cloud-covered.  Rice yield information will be based on a crop growth simulation model using a combination of real-time and historical weather data and SAR-derived key information such as start of growing season and leaf growth rate. This application of SAR technology and crop modeling will be demonstrated in pilot study sites in South East and South Asian Countries.