MCM'10: An experiment for satellite multi-sensors crop monitoring from high to low resolution observations

The MCM'10 experiment (Multi-sensors Crop Monitoring, 2010) aims to evaluate the potentialities of optical, microwave and thermal satellite images for monitoring agricultural surfaces. The Experiment is conducted during ten month in 2010, from February to November over a super-site located in the South West of France. Remote sensing data (>150 images) are provided by nine low orbit satellites, from high to low spatial resolutions (several meters to 50km). Ground data are collected over winter and summer crops, quasi synchronously with satellite images. More than 30 000 measurements are collected over 387 agricultural fields. They concern soil and vegetation parameters (moisture, roughness, height, biomass…). Results show great complementarities of multi-sensors and multiwavelength data for monitoring agricultural landscape. The ground data collection highlights the importance of field-scale approaches, linked to the strong heterogeneity in space and time of surface parameters (soil properties, vegetation type, farmers' practices…).