Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for fertilizer management and human health

Abstract

Groundwater is a main source for supplying drinking water. High concentration of fertilizer originated in soils accumulated through irrigation water causes negative impacts on the agricultural environment, soil-grass quality, livestock and fishery production and on the food chain. Fertilizer plays an important role in increasing agricultural production. Over-fertilizing has a negative effect on water quality which in turn negatively affects the health of the people and animals who use it. The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodology that has the potential to reduce the amounts of fertilizer used and thus to have secondary environmental benefits. This is done by using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (herein after UAVs). The authors conducted experiments in both Hokkaido and Miyakojima, however in this paper, forage crop management in Hokkaido is discussed. UAVs equipped with RGB and near infrared cameras that take Blue Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (BNDVI) images fly over the cropland. Orthorectifying Aerial Photographs are obtained from both of RGB and BNDVI images. Comparing several images, the resulting data can be used, the amounts of fertilizer needed can be optimized by analyzing the spatial growth patterns of the cropland. The authors offer this paper here to stimulate research interest and contacts in the cross disciplinary fields of agriculture management, environmental issues and human health.