The drone is just one of the many geospatial tools researchers and Extension staff at Kentucky State University employ in order to understand the world and around us, both in terms of the differences between places and how that may be changing over time. This is especially important when considering how dependent agriculture is on local environmental change, so being able to quantify change and track it over time can be helpful for planning purposes and more.
While the technology provides an invaluable service towards research objectives, people are often more interested in the drone as a piece of “cool” technology rather than the scientific role it plays. Jeremy Sandifer, STEM project coordinator, capitalizes on that fascination when creating educational content and working with young people. He works with assistant professor Dr. Buddhi Gyawali to teach undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in Earth and Environmental Systems and Geosciences, Geographic Information Systems, and Remote Sensing.
“Whatever it takes to keep them interested,” Sandifer says.
Dating back to the 1960s and the days of The Space Race, the type of digital imagery produced by the drone has been used in the evaluation of environmental conditions. This technology has allowed witnessing whole scale changes on Earth's surface including massive deforestation in the Amazon, as well as the slow but steady decline of sea ice extent in the Arctic.
“Recently, thanks to super high spatial resolution satellite imagery and emergence of low cost ‘drone’ technology, we are witnessing an explosion in the utilization of this data for farm and land management activities, especially agriculture,” Sandifer says. “At the farm level, this imagery can be used to estimate the distribution of such parameters as nitrogen or moisture content in the soil and can also be coupled with crop production level to build yield prediction models.”
Sandifer and Dr. Gyawali have implemented several projects that are helping us understand to what degree the tried and true traditional geospatial methods can be adapted to extract useable information. Sandifer also hopes to better understand how that extracted information then relates to the hard data KSU soil and crop scientists are collecting as part of their work.
be adapted to extract useable information. Sandifer also hopes to better understand how that extracted information then relates to the hard data KSU soil and crop scientists are collecting as part of their work.
“Applying expert knowledge as a ground truth to our imagery is much more meaningful in terms of the information that can be extracted from it, and whether that information is actionable or not,” Sandifer says. “Without that ground validation data, the imagery is only useful for documentation and marketing. Helpful, but not in terms of our research questions.”
At Bernheim Arboretum and Research Florest in Clermont, Ky., Sandifer and the GIS staff and students are working with the forest management staff to use geospatial data and methods to document conditions of the edible garden and to understand the distribution of invasive species throughout the park.
Sandifer is looking for local farmers and land managers who have been collecting detailed data on their crops, either in terms of production yields, quality, or changes in the local environmental conditions. The College of Agriculture, Food Science, and Sustainable Systems wants to work with these producers to help them leverage the power of this technology for improving their bottom line.
Contact Jeremy Sandifer at jeremy.sandifer@kysu.edu.
Opposite page: Jeremy Sandifer, STEM Project Coordinator; This page: Sandifer and Dr. Buddhi Gyawali (right), Assistant Professor of Geospatial Applications and Human Dimensions of Natural Resources
30