Assimilation of remote sensing data into crop growth model to improve the estimation of regional winter wheat yield

Accurate regional crop growth monitoring and yield prediction is very critical for the national food security assessment and sustainable development of agriculture, especially for China, which has the largest population in the world. Remote sensing data and crop growth model have been successfully used in the crop production prediction. However, both of them have inherent limitation and uncertainty. The data assimilation method which combines crop growth model and remotely sensed data has been proven to be the most effective method in regional yield estimation. The aim of this paper is to improve the estimation of regional winter wheat yield of crop growth model by using data assimilation schemes with Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) algorithm. WOrld FOod STudies (WOFOST) crop growth model was chosen as the crop growth model which was calibrated and validated by the field measured data. MODIS Leaf Area Index (LAI) values were used as remote sensing observations to adjust the LAI simulated by the WOFOST model based on EnKF. The results illustrate that the EnKF algorithm has significantly improved the regional winter wheat yield estimates over the WOFOST simulation without assimilation in both potential and water-limited modes. Although this study clearly implies that the assimilation of the remotely sensed data into crop growth model with EnKF algorithm has the potential to improve the prediction of regional crop yield and has great potential in agricultural applications, high resolution meteorological data and detailed crop field management are necessary to reach a high accuracy of regional crop yield estimation.