A Reference Process for Management Zones Delineation in Precision Agriculture

Management zone delineation in precision agriculture requires many steps. Because of the diversity of tools for each step, the correct selection of methods and tools is a complex task. In this context, the aim of this work is to propose a reference model process for management zone delineation in precision agriculture to describe the subprocesses, activities, flows and decisions required for the proper management zone delineation in an understandable language by everyone involved in the process, that can be used as a guide for the process of management zone delineation. Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) was used to formalize the reference model for management zone delineation, being a standardized graphical notation understandable by everyone involved in the process. The model is composed of the five subprocesses: data collection, data selection, data filtering, clustering and maps evaluation. In addition, the model presents activities, flows and gateways for each subprocess, presenting concepts, prerequisites, limitations of the applicable methods for each activity and possible variations to the implementation of the activities, increasing the options available for management zone delineation. A case study was developed to demonstrate the applicability of the model proposed. The agricultural field used had different data sampling grids, data acquisition errors and strong correlation between pairs of attributes. The model was instrumental to overcome those issues guiding the application of adequate techniques and methods, resulting in a set of management zone maps from which to choose the most appropriate for precision agriculture objectives. The BPMN used showed to be adequate to represent subprocesses, activities, flows and gateways of the process for management zone delineation.