Center pivot irrigation system analysis using airborne remotely sensed imagery: a commercial remote sensing case study

TRW´s Ag Resource Mapping agricultural remote sensing program operated a commercial airborne remote sensing service in the State of Washington during the growing season of 1994. As part of the remote sensing program, TRW offered a prototype irrigation management service that was targeted at the early season verification/evaluation of the functionality of center pivot irrigation systems. Initial commercial market evaluation regarding this service indicated a substantial number of potential customers over a wide area. Initial concepts for the fulfilment of the service indicated good economics (based on number of fields covered per flight and cost per field imaged). During the study, it was demonstrated that the remote sensing of center pivot irrigation systems can be successfully addressed with high resolution film based remote sensing systems. However, the author´s experience indicates that servicing a very large number of customers over a wide area can be economically problematic and that the difficulties are an interplay of complex market, system, weather, geographic, crop, and customer related factors