Journal of Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers ISSN:1738-3692(Print) 2093-7709(Online) 한국농공학회논문집

The main goal of this paper is to assess application of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) remote sensing and GIS based images in detection and measuring of rice field drought area in South Korea. Drought is recurring feature of the climatic events, which often hit South Korea, bringing significant water shortages, local economic losses and adverse social consequences. This paper describes the assesment of the near-realtime drought damage monitoring and reporting system for the agricultural drought region. The system is being developed using drought-related vegetation characteristics, which are derived from UAV remote sensing data. The study area is 3.07 ㎢ of Wonbuk-myeon, Taean-gun, Chungnam in South Korea. UAV images were acquired three times from July 4 to October 29, 2015. Three images of the same test site have been analysed by object-based image classification technique. Drought damaged paddy rices reached 754,362 ㎡, which is 47.1 %. The NongHyeop Agricultural Damage Insurance accepted agricultural land of 4.6 % (34,932 ㎡). For paddy rices by UAV investigation, the drought monitoring and crop productivity was effective in improving drought assessment method.