Studies from Kyoto University in the Area of Crop Insurance Published [Drought Damage Assessment for Crop Insurance Based on Vegetation Index by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Multispectral Images of Paddy Fields in Indonesia]: Agriculture – Crop Insurance

2023 FEB 07 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Fresh data on crop insurance are presented in a new report. According to news reporting originating from Kyoto, Japan, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Drought is increasingly threatening smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia. The crop insurance system is one of the promising countermeasures that was implemented in Indonesia in 2015.”

Funders for this research include Jst Satreps.

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Kyoto University: “Because the damage assessment in the present system is conducted through direct investigations based on appearance, it is not objective and needs a long time to cover large areas. In this study, we investigated a rapid assessment method for paddy fields using a vegetation index (VI) taken by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a multispectral camera in 2019 and 2021. Then, two ways of assessment for drought damage were tested: linear regression (LR) based on a visually assessed drought level (DL), and k-means clustering without an assessed DL. As a result, EVI2 could represent the damage level, showing the tendency of the decrease in the value along with the increasing DL. The estimated DL by both methods mostly coincided with the assessed DL, but the concordance rates varied depending on the locations and the number of assessed fields. Differences in the growth stage and rice cultivars also affected the results.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “This study revealed the feasibility of the UAV-based rapid and objective assessment method. Further data collection and analysis would be required for implementation in the future.”

For more information on this research see: Drought Damage Assessment for Crop Insurance Based on Vegetation Index by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Multispectral Images of Paddy Fields in Indonesia. Agriculture, 2022,13(113):113. (Agriculture - http://www.mdpi.com/journal/agriculture). The publisher for Agriculture is MDPI AG.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13010113.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Yu Iwahashi, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kyoto 6068224, Japan. Additional authors for this research include Gunardi Sigit, Budi Utoyo, Iskandar Lubis, Ahmad Junaedi, Bambang Hendro Trisasongko, I Made Anom Sutrisna Wijaya, Masayasu Maki, Chiharu Hongo, Koki Homma.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)