Calling all Farmers! Were Your Fields Impacted by the August 10th, 2020 Derecho?
Calling All Farmers!
Were your fields impacted by the August 10th, 2020 derecho?
NASA Harvest is currently working with our partners to map the impacts of this devastating extreme weather event on this year’s crops, but we need your help! The NASA Harvest Consortium serves as NASA’s Food and Agriculture Program, striving to enable and advance the adoption of satellite Earth observations by public and private organizations to benefit food security, agriculture, and human and environmental resiliency in the U.S. and worldwide. Our projects are end-user-driven and in this case, we are working to map the severity of damage by crop type in order to provide accurate information for recovery efforts. In order to accomplish this, we are in need of ground data showing how the derecho has impacted farms and crop production in affected regions throughout the Midwest. Read on to learn how you can contribute to this derecho impact project by sharing data and photos of your damaged fields.*
*Disclaimer: NASA Harvest will not share your private information or location. We will make the final maps of derecho impacts available to the public so that you and others can learn more about the derecho effects and implement policy responses.
Listen below for an AgriTalk interview with Inbal Becker-Reshef [NASA Harvest Program Director], Hannah Kerner [NASA Harvest U.S. Lead], and Seth Meyer [University of Missouri Research Professor] to learn more about the data we are looking at and how it will be used to inform crop production in the U.S. and worldwide.
Derecho impacts seen by satellites
NASA Harvest is working to quantify the impacts of the derecho on crops. We are using satellite images to observe the impacted areas, which we will combine with maps of specific crop types and other land cover to characterize the impact on crops.
Product derived from Sentinel-1 SAR data showing derecho impacts on crops.
MODIS (500m/pixel resolution) images over Iowa taken on July 28 (left) and August 11 (right). Light-toned region in the middle of the right image shows areas impacted by the derecho.
PlanetScope (3m/pixel resolution) images of Madrid, IA taken on August 9 (left) and August 11 (right). Light-toned fields in the August 11 image show crops flattened by the derecho.
How you can help
To help interpret the satellite data and check the validity of our models, we need ground-truth information about where and to what extent crops were damaged. Since your iPhone or Android smartphone contains a GPS, we can collect this ground-truth information using geo-tagged images that you take of your damaged crops. The below instructions describe how to take geo-tagged images with your phone and share them to help NASA Harvest.
If you’re visiting or working in your fields and can take new photos, here’s how to take geo-tagged photos:
1. Navigate to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Camera. Select “While Using the App” as shown in the image below.
2. Use the Camera app to take a new photo.
3. Follow the instructions below to email the image to info@nasaharvest.org and ensure the location is saved in your photo.
If you’ve already taken some images that you have stored in your Photos, check if the location was stored when you took them:
Open the image in the Photos app. If the image has a location, it will likely show it above the image (red box in image below). Click the Share icon (green circle in image below).
2. If the image has a location, you will see “Locations included” when you click the Share icon (red box in image below). Click the Gmail or Mail app (whichever you use) to share the image (green box in image below).
3. Email the image to info@nasaharvest.org with the subject line “Derecho photos”.
Instructions for Android
If you’re visiting or working in your fields and can take new photos, here’s how to take geo-tagged photos:
Open the Gallery app and navigate to its settings. Look for the “Location tags” or “Save location” option and enable it.
Open the Gallery app and navigate to its settings. Turn on the location setting.
Use the Camera app to take a new photo.
Follow the instructions below to email the image to info@nasaharvest.org and ensure the location is saved in your photo.
If you’ve already taken some images that you have stored in your Gallery, check if the location was stored when you took them:
Open the Gallery app and click the three-horizontal dot icon in the top right corner.
Select “Info” or “Details”. This should show you a map preview of the location where the image was taken.
Email the image to info@nasaharvest.org with the subject line “Derecho photos”.