The value of Sentinel 1 and 2 for agricultural monitoring: lessons learned from a few case studies.

The exponential growth in the number of earth-observing satellites during the last few years, along with the advent of novel and powerful computational platforms and algorithms, has enabled significant progress toward agricultural monitoring from space. Among recently-deployed sensors from both the public and private sector, ESA's Sentinel 1 (radar) and 2 (optical) offer great promise for several agricultural applications, used both individually or in combination. We will present results from case studies in Africa and the United States where Sentinel 1 and 2 are used to estimate several agricultural variables including crop yield, crop type, and management practices (e.g. no-till) in different landscapes. Emphasis will be placed on comparisons with ground data collected at the field level, and on comparing the relative value of radar and optical data for assessing different outcomes.