Detection of Water Stress in an Olive Orchard with Thermal Remote Sensing Imagery

An investigation of the detection of water stress in non-homogeneous crop canopies such as orchards using high-spatial resolution remote sensing thermal imagery is presented. An airborne campaign was conducted with the Airborne Hyperspectral Scanner (AHS) acquiring imagery in 38 spectral bands in the 0.43–12.5 mm spectral range at 2.5 m spatial resolution. The AHS sensor was flown at 7:30, 9:30 and 12:30 GMT in 25 July 2004 over an olive orchard with three different water-deficit irrigation treatments to study the spatial and diurnal variability of temperature as a function of water stress. A total of 10 AHS bands located within the thermal-infrared region were assessed for the retrieval of…