Some examples of such applications include irrigation certifications, which demostrate the use of irrigation rigth given a certain data range, farms apprisal, for appraisals or productivity assessments, insurance claims for damages due, for example, weather events, settlement of boundaries or right of way disputes, or any other study that the expert surveyor needs to prove certain use, present or past, that can be analyzed through images adquired by satellites or aerial platforms.
An export report based on remote sensing data can be used in an insurance claim, in an appeal to a public administration or even in court proceedings if necessary.

Irrigation certifications

The existence of a satellite image archive, for example the case of Landsat, free and open since the 70s, enables to perform historical studies of the presence of irrigation crops. From these analysis we can, for example, prove that a given farm was irrigating before certain date or date range and therefore holds irrigation rights or can challenge the expiry of a concession.

Evolution of the NDVI index between may and june of 1997.

Calculation of irrigated surface per plot between may and june of 1997.

Property valuation

Images obtained through drones or satellites are a very interesting tool to assess the current state of a property, its evolution over time or to evaluate its past behaviour. This information can be used to carry out farms appraisals or to carry out historical productivity studies and include them in the valuation.

Example of satellite image where management patterns are observed.

Mapsens Agro App showing an inventory of olive trees generated through drone flight for a farm valuation.

Insurance claims

The fact that satellite images are a truthful and replicable data source, they can be used as a basis for agricultural insurance claims, for example in the case of climate events such as drought, frost, hailstorms, etc. As well as mapping and detecting the affected area, we can classify the surface area depending on the severity of the damages and provide much more detailed and complete information.

Damage on crops caused by hailstorm (Top natular color, bottom infrared false color).
Source: NASA Earth Observatory, Landsat 8, 2018.

Boundary disputes and rigths of way.

Not only satellite images can have expert value, but also aerial photographs taken by different state and regional public entities, such as Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN) in Spain or the geographical services of Autonomous Communities or City Councils.

Comparison of official cadastral mapping with current and historical aerial photograph can help analyze or resolve conflict between different landowners over the position of boundaries or right of way to the properties.

American flight orthophoto (1956, left) and PNOA most current (2022, right).

At TYC GIS we have extensive experience on both the preparation of expert survey informs for agricultural applications and on other fields, such as expert testimony in legal proceedings.

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it. ]]> https://tycgis.com/en/projects-tyc-gis-agricultural-survey-with-satellite-orthophoto-and-drone-imagery/feed/ 0 https://tycgis.com/en/projects-tyc-gis-agroforestry-carbon-dioxide-absorption-project-in-zambia/ https://tycgis.com/en/projects-tyc-gis-agroforestry-carbon-dioxide-absorption-project-in-zambia/#respond Thu, 23 May 2024 09:45:51 +0000 https://tycgis.com/?p=9755 At TYC GIS we have worked the last months in a agroforestry CO₂ absorption project carried out in 10 districts of the western province of Zambia by the multinational company ETG, specialized in the trading of agricultural products.

The project, at its current stage, has consisted on the planting of aproximately 120.000 cashew trees (Anacardium occidentale) distributed betweeen 1700 plots dedicated to subsistence agriculture that sum up more than 2000 hectares of surface area. Besides them, further extensions of the project are planned, that will make these numbers to grow in the future.

The trees we delivered during the 2019/2020 plantation season by ETG to those farmers who previously offered their plots for plantation, therefore this project having also a strong social component that improve the living conditions of the local population, since farmers can gain benefit from the sale of cashew nuts.

After 4 years since the trees were planted, work began to apply for the project validation and the first verification of the carbon credits generated to the certifier body. It is during this process that ETG has relied on the services provided by TYC GIS.

Work carried out

1. Project surface mapping

The first work consisted on the mapping of the surface area of the project, this is, digitise all the planting plots so their geometries can be used on GIS.

To undertake this work, TYC GIS developed its own mobile app with all the necessary tools to digitise on the field the plots and to include all the data that was considered relevant.

The digitisation of plots was carried out by a local ETG team consisting in 12 field digitisers who were previously trained on the use of the mobile app by a TYC GIS team. This training was carried out face to face in the classrooms of Namushakende agricultural training centre, located in the Mongu district, where the capital of the west province is, and also closeby to some planting plots so they could practice what they learned.

Once the digitising process started, all the simultaneously produced information by the 12 digitisers, was stored in real time in a spatial database connected to the mobile app and created specifically for this project. This database was also reviewed daily by the TYC GIS team in Spain to issue reports and to produce all kinds of statistics and graphical elements on the digitisation.

2. Mapping review

As the digitisation process progressed, TYC GIS team was carrying out a detailed and indepth review of the results. This review was carried out based on current high definition satellite images and consisted on the supervision and possible modification of the geometries, error removal and classification of each plot into 5 different tree density classes towards the project stratification.

3. Field sampling

Once all the plots were digitised and checked, the field sampling was designed to quantificate the carbon present in the planted trees. This sampling consisted in a traditional forest inventory with field measurements in sample plots and on photogrametric and multispectral drone flights towards the monitoring of the trees condition and the measurement of the morphological parameters of the trees.

The chosen method for the forest inventory was the stratified random sampling. The stratification consisted in the plot classification in 5 classes according to the density of the trees present in them, and, after calculating the number of plots to sample for each class, their random location within the area occupied by each class was carried out.

After the design of the sampling phase, two TYC GIS teams traveled to Zambia to carry out the field sampling. Samplijg plots were located and measurements of different morphological variables were taken on all the trees located inside them. Besides that, all the surface area of the planted plots where sampling plots were located was flown with a drone in order to obtain photogrametric and multispectral data.

4. Absorption calculation, baseline, additionality and CO2 final balance.

Once back in Spain, the calculations of the CO₂ absorbed by the planted trees during the period to verify in the more than 2000 hectares of the project was carried out, thanks to the measurements taken in the field.

But this is not all, it was also necessary to calculate the possible carbon losses due to wildfires, as well as the carbon that would have been absorbed in the surface area currently occupied by the planted plots if this planting had not been carried out. The latter is known as project baseline.

Both calculations were carried out through remote sensing techniques and GIS operations. In the baseline case, the methodology used for the carbon credit certification required a procedure known as “Performance Benchmark” to be carried out. This is a dynamic method based on the calculation of a remote sensing index related to the stored carbon on a given surface. This index has to be calculated, for the verifying period, both on the random selection of small areas belonging to the project and on a representative sample of areas outside of the project but located in the surrounding area and with similar characteristics.

The result of the “Performance Benchmark” is the percentage of carbon stored by the project that would have been stored anyways if the project had not been implemented. Besides, the “Performance Benchmark” method is also used to demostrate the additionality of the project, this is, that its CO₂ absorptions are higher than the baseline, which is a requirement for any CO₂ absorption project.

Finally, the final balance of CO₂ absorption of the project was calculated and with it the carbon credits to request. Also, all the documentation requested by the certifying body related to the work of TYC GIS was elaborated, including mapping products, results tables or GIS shapefiles.

Customer: ETG Climate Solutions

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it. ]]> https://tycgis.com/en/projects-tyc-gis-agroforestry-carbon-dioxide-absorption-project-in-zambia/feed/ 0 https://tycgis.com/en/projects-tyc-gis-inventory-and-green-areas-management-plugin-for-the-cities-from-banco-santander/ https://tycgis.com/en/projects-tyc-gis-inventory-and-green-areas-management-plugin-for-the-cities-from-banco-santander/#respond Mon, 20 May 2024 15:02:56 +0000 https://tycgis.com/?p=9763 In the same line as the urban inventory management plugins previously developed for the city hall of Pozuelo de Alarcón and Avilés, we have carried out a new work for inventory management, in this case it will be the botanical inventory of the Santander Bank in the cities of Pozuelo de Alarcón and Madrid.

Despite sharing a lot, this plugin requiered some modifications for the peculiarities of this inventory. We moved on to having fewer shapes, focusing only on general trees, olive trees, bushes, shrub thickets and grasslands. However, the data available for each shape, specially for olive trees and shrub thickets, required a complete reformulation of the data model.

The olive trees have a data model that distinguish them from the other trees, they have a name, date, and being all the elements of the same species, the classification of families and species, and the symbology asociated, had to be replaced. The customer also have pictures of the olive trees, and of other shapes too. To mantain the lightness of the data base and ensure the agile handling of the shapes, an action was introduced that enables the pictures to be opened in the web browser. This allows to make a fast query of the pictures, but avoids the problems that loading a hole shape of pictures may cause.

In the case of shrubs thickets, they are kept as polygonal entities, but we now face multispecies polygons, on which they can coexists up to three species. This required first a change in the logic of the data base, so it can adapt to the existence of several species and to guarantee the logical order of the species inside the table, preventing, for example, that that a species occupy the value of the third species, if there is no species in the place of the main species. A style was created that analyze the amount of species of each polygon and respects the symbology of the main species, but indicating that it is not the only species in that space.

Another innovation introduced, upon the customer request, was a species finder. In previous plugins, to find a species we had to chose first a family and inside it we chose the species. Now, although it can still be done this way, a finder was implemented that search among the species of all families if the family field is blank and can search for the species inside a specific family.

In additon to this innovations, the plugin maintains all the capabillities of the previous ones, giving the control for creation, removal and editing of entities for the “user” access level, user administration for the “admin” level and an additional “visitor” level that allows to make queries without the possibility of making changes in the data base.

Customer:

If you need help with a similar project, contact us here TYC GIS.

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it. ]]> https://tycgis.com/en/projects-tyc-gis-inventory-and-green-areas-management-plugin-for-the-cities-from-banco-santander/feed/ 0 https://tycgis.com/en/intep-training-precision-agriculture-applied-to-citrus-crops/ https://tycgis.com/en/intep-training-precision-agriculture-applied-to-citrus-crops/#respond Wed, 08 May 2024 15:38:51 +0000 https://tycgis.com/?p=9749 Location: Roldanillo Valle del Cauca (Colombia)
Establishment: Instituto de Educación Técnica Profesional
Training: Agricultural Administrators, Precision Agriculture Seminar
Objective: Show the services and extent of precision agriculture through drones and satellite images.

We are pleased to announce the collaboration with Instituto Técnico Agrícola INTEP Roldanillo in Valle del Cauca to fortify the agriculture future through the implementation of innovative technologies. We are commited to the precision agriculture progress, applying drone and satellite images. This strategic alliance seeks to enhance the training in this key areas, preparing the students for the modern agricultural challenges.

We share with the students all the precision agriculture methods applied to the lemon crops on the farm, soil analysis, integrated management and drone appications, activities programme is explained, flight programme, velocity and drop size. We are also accompanied by helidrones and the release of the DJI Agras T50 sprinkler equipment.

If you are interested in recieving training applied to your industry, contact us here TYC GIS and ask for our training offer.

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it. ]]> https://tycgis.com/en/intep-training-precision-agriculture-applied-to-citrus-crops/feed/ 0 https://tycgis.com/en/training-geographic-information-systems-with-qgis/ https://tycgis.com/en/training-geographic-information-systems-with-qgis/#respond Tue, 16 Apr 2024 07:50:20 +0000 https://tycgis.com/?p=9741 Course:
Geographic Information Systems with QGIS
Mode: On-site.
Location: Estepona (Málaga).
Course objective: Get in touch with the QGIS platform in order to transition from CAD to GIS format, focused on planning and monitoring of urban projects.
Dates: 16 of november 2023 – 18 of december 2023.
Participants: 10

Brief description.

Past december, we have teached the basic course of QGIS, as usual based on a practical approach and guided by a experienced team in urban development projects, CAI CONSULTORES.

We start with a brief theoric introduction to GIS and we get familiar with the QGIS display, addresing then how to handle vector data. We learned to load different data sources, manage symbology and labeling of urban elements on maps on plans.

The handling of coordinates systems, CAD files import and its transformation to GIS files tool most of our time. We explored design tools, similiars to the ones already used on CAD platforms and we focus on enrich shapes with joints and relations.

Geoprocessing and spatial analysis tools allow us to understand the relationships between different urban elements, like buildings, roads and green areas. This is key to perform the environmental impact analysis, risk evaluation and infrastructure planning.

The handling of Digital Elevation Models (DEM) was essential for urban planning, delivering detailed information of the topography of the terrain. Finally, we explored the map composition, specially focused on the mass production of maps through the QGIS Atlas and the handling of dynamic elements of the maps.

From the start, we focus on customise the exercises to the personal needs of every participant. We have enjoyed a participative atmosphere and conductive to the performance of the training, very enrichning and satisfactory, which we hope we will be able to repeat in the future.

If you are interested in recieving training with us, focused to your area, contact us here en TYC GIS and ask for our training offer.

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it. ]]> https://tycgis.com/en/training-geographic-information-systems-with-qgis/feed/ 0 https://tycgis.com/en/dji-matrice-350-rtk-with-lidar-l2/ https://tycgis.com/en/dji-matrice-350-rtk-with-lidar-l2/#respond Thu, 07 Mar 2024 12:47:59 +0000 https://tycgis.com/?p=9637 In TYC GIS we just acquired the new Matrice 350 RTK drone of DJI with a LIDAR L2 sensor to use it in our forestry, civil works and infrastructure monitoring and inspection projects.

For the first test flight, we flew over a holm oak forest with the objective of generating a LiDAR point cloud and analyze how much precision the L2 sensor can achieve.

Before the flight, control points were taken (GCPs) with two GPS EMLID Reach RTK RS2+ units. One of them was configured as the base and the other one as “rover” for the position capture of the targets on the ground.

The results were very satisfactory, and we wait with enthusiasm to put it into practice on our forestry and infraestructure projects.

Contact us here TYC GIS if you need help with similar projects.

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it. ]]> https://tycgis.com/en/dji-matrice-350-rtk-with-lidar-l2/feed/ 0 https://tycgis.com/en/project-tyc-gis-migration-of-a-project-to-gis-format-for-the-improvement-of-a-us-military-base/ https://tycgis.com/en/project-tyc-gis-migration-of-a-project-to-gis-format-for-the-improvement-of-a-us-military-base/#respond Tue, 20 Feb 2024 16:00:21 +0000 https://tycgis.com/?p=9614 In this project, work was done on the migration of the elements of the military base in CAD format to GIS format (infrastructures, land use, parcels, roads, etc.), and its associated database.

The organization of information applying GIS is an improvement over storage in CAD format, considering the capacity that these GIS systems provide for the integration of geospatial data, allowing for more advanced spatial analysis, within the framework of spatial database management.

If you need help with a similar project, please contact us here TYC GIS.

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it. ]]> https://tycgis.com/en/project-tyc-gis-migration-of-a-project-to-gis-format-for-the-improvement-of-a-us-military-base/feed/ 0 https://tycgis.com/en/projects-tyc-gis-plugin-development-for-urban-inventory-in-aviles/ https://tycgis.com/en/projects-tyc-gis-plugin-development-for-urban-inventory-in-aviles/#respond Wed, 07 Feb 2024 13:27:13 +0000 https://tycgis.com/?p=9609 Some weeks ago, we talked about a project carried out for EULEN of a QGIS plugin for urban inventory management. This time, we have a new project for EULEN. On this ocassion, for the urban inventory management of Avilés.

It may seem that the elements a cityhall needs to inventory are always the same and sometimes very similar, yet they always have some pecularities and specific needs. That’s why having at our disposal an app created ad hoc for our specific case and needs is an advantage over a prefab software that may require us to adapt to it.

The Avilés plugin consist on 10 layers, 6 of them of lanscaping (tree, bush, green areas, flower massif, hedge massif, bush massif). These layers have their own field and symbology collection, specifically created for the representation needs of the customer data. On the other four layers (Inventoriable assets, Promenades, Fountains and Rolling mills and water sheets), the data base had to be adapted and a new symbology had to be created for the inventoriable assets, given the wide variety of the inventoried elements.

The plugin also has a user administration section that gives control of user administration to the customer. This allows them to create or erase users, as well as assigning and varying their roles. This way, we can vary someones role from a technician with acces to make changes on the elements into an administrator able to creat new users or revoke a workers acces to the data base if he or she leaves the position.

Another challenge in this kind of works is often the massive loading of data that was taken before the creation of the data model, as it does not always the created data model fits the older one or every data taken above adjust o it. Usually, you have to face a series of layers, excel tables or CSV, where the names of the fields change from one data source to other ones, some are incorrect or non-existant, etc. That’s why, during the data migration phase, we generate some data loading python scripts adjusted to the specific needs of the situation. We detect and correct systematic errors with nomenclatures, coding, wrong or missing data.

Once the data uploading is done, the customer inmediately began to inventory using a tablet with windows 10 in the field, which allowed to use QGIS. The performance was good, considering it was not designed to be used on a tablet, and has made it possible to carry out inventory work in the field with our plugin, which has been a great help in facilitating its execution.

Customer:

If you need help with a similar project, please contact us here TYC GIS.

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Data collection is perfomed, it gets processed and the inventory is generated identifying living palms with a 1 and failures with a 0, indicating the row and numbering order nomenclature given at the time of planting.

Crop inventory from drone data provides a detailed compilation and valuable information about the condition, health and development of a specific area of the crop. Thin inventory is created from data collected by drones equipped with specialized sensors during planned flights over the areas of interest.

If you wish to know more about our precision agriculture SMART AGRO app, contact us here TYC GIS. SMART AGRO app uses drone, satellite, weather and field sensors data.

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it. ]]> https://tycgis.com/en/project-mapsens-agro-mapping-and-inventory-of-oil-palm-cultivation/feed/ 0 https://tycgis.com/en/project-mapsens-civil-civil-works-monitoring/ https://tycgis.com/en/project-mapsens-civil-civil-works-monitoring/#respond Tue, 30 Jan 2024 11:44:18 +0000 https://tycgis.com/?p=9600 ● Location: Santander department(Colombia)
● Surface area: 4 hectares
● Data source: Drone
● Main objective: Identify works and follow up on civil works.
● General objective: Perform volume calculation, soil movement and general work monitoring.
● Date: December, 2023

Data is loaded to Mapsens® Civil to analyze collected information.

Data collection for work monitoring is an increasingly common practice on construction industry, thanks to the many benefits that this technology provides.

The results obtained are analyzed to evaluate the work progress, deviations from the original plan and take data driven decisions. This real time information facilitates early identification of problems, eficient resource management and optimisation of the construction process.

Drone data collection for civil works monitoring offers a detailed and updated perspective, improving precision and efficiency of the construction proyects management.

If you wish to know more about our Mapsens® Civil app, contact us here TYC GIS. Mapsens® Civil is a Web GIS app for the monitoring and inspection of works with drones.

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