The graph shows the cumulated area of 2020 harvesting relative to 2019. In Spain, winter cereals are cultivated over almost two million hectares of land, mainly found in the autonomous regions of Castilla and León, Andalucia, Castilla-la-Mancha and Aagón. Thanks to satellite data, the evolution of harvests can be monitored in near-real time, at parcel-level over the entire country. Scientists from the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium used data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions and the US Landsat-8 mission together with machine learning to monitor crops on a weekly basis. Comparing the data with that of last year, they found that the 2020 harvesting season started in mid-June, which is later than the average crop calendar for winter cereals in Spain.
Explore the dashboard.
Read full article: Satellites provide crucial data on crops during COVID-19