Monitoring the combined effects of drought and salinity stress on crops using remote sensing in the Netherlands

Abstract

Abstract. Global sustainable agricultural systems are under threat, due to increasing and co-occurring drought and salinity stresses. Combined effects of these stresses on agricultural crops have traditionally been evaluated in small-scale experimental studies. Consequently, large-scale studies need to be performed to increase our understanding and assessment of the combined impacts in agricultural practice in real-life scenarios. This study aims to provide a new monitoring approach using remote-sensing observations to evaluate the joint impacts of drought and salinity on crop traits. In our tests over the Netherlands at large spatial scale (138.74 km2), we calculated five functional traits for both maize and potato from Sentinel-2 observations, namely leaf area index (LAI), the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR), the fraction of vegetation cover (FVC), leaf chlorophyll content (Cab), and leaf water content (Cw). Individual and combined effects of the stresses on the seasonal dynamics in crop traits were determined using both one-way and two-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs). We found that both stresses (individual and co-occurring) affected the functional traits of both crops significantly (with R2 ranging from 0.326 to 0.796) though with stronger sensitivities to drought than to salinity. While we found exacerbating effects within co-occurrent stresses, the impact level depended strongly on the moment in the growing season. For both crops, LAI, FAPAR, and FVC dropped the most under severe drought stress conditions. The patterns for Cab and Cw were more inhibited by co-occurring drought and salinity. Consequently, our study constitutes a way towards evaluating drought and salinity impacts in agriculture, with the possibility of potential large-scale application for sustainable food security.