Advances in Remote Sensing of Agriculture: Context Description, Existing Operational Monitoring Systems and Major Information Needs

Many remote sensing applications are devoted to the agricultural sector. Representative case studies are presented in the special issue “Advances in Remote Sensing of Agriculture”. To complement the examples published within the special issue, a few main applications with regional to global focus were selected for this review, where remote sensing contributions are traditionally strong. The selected applications are put in the context of the global challenges the agricultural sector is facing: minimizing the environmental impact, while increasing production and productivity. Five different applications have been selected, which are illustrated and described: (1) biomass and yield estimation, (2) vegetation…