G.I. Ezenne, et al.
Agricultural Water Management 218 (2019) 158–164
the value of the output produced per quantity of water consumed, and;
water use (hydraulic) efficiency, which is defined as the ratio of water
consumed by irrigated agriculture to the volume of water supplied.
These three CWP definitions are centred on minimizing water input
while maximizing the crop yield/output. Deficit irrigation techniques
have been found to improve CWP by more than 200% (Zwart and
Bastiaanssen, 2004; Hirich et al., 2014; Adeboye et al., 2015) if irri-
gation is timeously managed. However, deficit irrigation must be
carefully managed as Igbadun et al. (2006) described an attempt to
maximize CWP by withholding irrigation in multiple crop growth
stages which resulted in significant reduction in crop yield. Zwart and
Bastiaanssen (2004), however, found that plants are more efficient with
water when they are stressed and agricultural production can be sus-
tained with 20–40% less water resources as long as new water man-
agement techniques are adopted.
The agricultural sector is currently under pressure to produce high
quantity of food while using less water per unit of output thereby in-
creasing CWP (Tshwene and Oladele, 2016). This is achieved by either
producing the same quantity of crop with less water resources, or a
higher quantity of crop with the same quantity of water resources
(Zwart and Bastiaanssen, 2004). Either way, CWP is generally derived
from the relationship between the water consumption and yield of a
particular crop, both of which are highly variable in space and time
(Kukal and Irmak, 2017). CWP can exhibit high spatial and temporal
variability due to climatic and agricultural factors (Mdemu et al.,
2009). Among the climatic factors, CWP is more sensitive to wind speed
and relative humidity compared to sunshine hours while for agri-
cultural factors, it is more sensitive to irrigation efficiency than the
quantity of fertilizer used (Sun et al., 2017). Therefore, to improve CWP
emphasis should focus on the climatic factors and on irrigation effi-
ciency. Existing techniques for improving CWP such as partial root zone
drying (Barrios-Masias and Jackson, 2016), optimized regulated deficit
irrigation (Léllis et al., 2017; Gendron et al., 2018; Adeboye et al.,
2015) etc. do not currently account for the integrated effects of climatic
and irrigation efficiency factors as well as spatial variability of CWP.
Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) technology offers high spatial resolu-
tion and rapid collection of data over large areas, potentially enabling
farmers to increase the precision of irrigation both spatially and tem-
porally. Therefore, the aim of this study is to give a general overview of
the current and potential capabilities of UAS to improve crop water
productivity under precision agriculture.
2. UAS in precision agriculture
UAS are platforms for remote sensing (RS) used in precision agri-
culture and examples of their use are found in (Hunt et al., 2018; Adão
et al., 2017; Bendig et al., 2012; Santesteban et al., 2017; Poblete et al.,
2017; Muchiri and Kimathi, 2016; Abdullahi et al., 2015; Simelli and
Apostolos, 2015; Whitehead et al., 2014; Whitehead and Hugenholtz,
2014; Manfreda et al., 2018). These platforms are evolving rapidly
technically and with regard to regulations (Ballesteros et al., 2014).
UASs recently have become a common remote sensing technology
comprising aerial platforms suitable for carrying small and lightweight
sensors. There are different classes of UAS for instance according to
Whitehead and Hugenholtz (2014), in United States it ranges from
micro (< 0.9 kg), mini (0.9–13.6 kg), tactical (13.6–454.5 kg), medium
altitude long endurance (454.5 – 13,636.4 kg), and high altitude long
endurance (> 13,636.4 kg). They noted that commercial and remote
sensing applications prefer UAS weighing less than 5 kg because of cost
advantages and reduced risk associated with blunt force impact. Mini-
UAS weighing less than 5 kg can carry 0.2 kg to 1.5 kg of sensor payload
(Bendig et al., 2012). According to Gago et al. (2015), four component
tasks to be considered before selecting the appropriate UAS for preci-
sion agriculture are: design of experiment, data acquisition, data pro-
cessing and results. For agricultural management, fixed-wing airplanes
and unmanned helicopters UASs are mainly used. These two aerial
159
platforms have some limitations and advantages. To mention a few
limitations and advantages, unmanned helicopters are able to travel in
any direction while fixed wing airplanes travel in a more linear and
restricted fashion. Fixed-wing aircrafts have simple flight systems and
can fly for longer duration compared to unmanned helicopters. Un-
manned helicopters have more complex flight systems and can offer
lower flight altitudes with low-speed. Fixed-wing aircrafts therefore,
have capacity to cover wider areas but their flight altitude is higher
which reduces the image resolution. Also, fixed-wing UAS aerial plat-
forms require specific runways or at least sufficient open space for
landing and take-off. Because of these limitations, recently a new air-
craft platform emerged, multi-copter (multi-rotor), which does not re-
quire special take-off or landing runway. The multi-copter is more user-
friendly which makes it possible to be operated by farmers in order to
obtain real-time data and apply adapted water management. Generally,
the type of UAS required depends on the aim of the study as well as the
quality of the desired output/result.
In addition to UAS aerial platforms, the camera sensors are key to
the quality of images produced. Selection of camera type also depends
on the aim of the project. The most commonly used UAS cameras in
agriculture include: thermal, multispectral, hyperspectral and red-
green-blue (RGB). Gago et al. (2015) recommended different camera
types depending on the type of crop trait/status of interest. For biotic
and abiotic stress, thermal and hyperspectral cameras are re-
commended; while multispectral and red-green-blue (RGB) cameras are
recommended for growth/biomass assessment. RGB cameras are one of
the traditional imaging systems used in agroforestry applications,
however they lack the precision and spectral range to profile materials
that hyperspectral and multispectral cameras can provide (Adão et al.,
2017).
3. Commonly used UAS imaging cameras for water status
3.1. Hyperspectral
Hyperspectral imaging techniques measure the reflectance from the
vegetation canopy. The recorded reflectance cannot be applied directly
as a metric of leaf water content therefore reflectance indices are used.
Indices for hyperspectral data include Simple Ratio Index (SRI),
Normalized Difference (e.g. Photochemical Reflectance Index (PRI))
etc. (Elvanidi et al., 2018; Pôças et al., 2017; Rapaport et al., 2015).
Hyperspectral technology integrates spectroscopy with the benefits of
digital imagery (Loggenberg et al., 2018). The capability of hyper-
spectral imaging ranging from 400 to 2500 nm in assessing the water
deficiency in tomato plants was demonstrated by Susič et al. (2018).
Zarco-Tejada et al. (2012) demonstrated the ability of UAV based hy-
perspectral and thermal cameras to assess water stress levels in a citrus
crop and confirmed that there is link between PRI and canopy tem-
perature. Recently, Loggenberg et al. (2018) combined hyperspectral
RS technologies with machine learning to discriminate between
stressed and non-stressed grape vines from hyperspectral imaging. The
results obtained showed that machine (ensemble) learners effectively
analysed the hyperspectral data.
Generally, hyperspectral imaging cameras capture more detailed
data in both spatial and spectral ranges compared to other cameras. It
can measure hundreds of bands which raises complexity when con-
sidering the quantity of data acquired. Loggenberg et al. (2018) noted
that the major limiting factor in applying hyperspectral data is the in-
herent ‘curse of dimensionality’ which results in reduced classification
accuracies. In addition, hyperspectral cameras are very expensive and
complex (Elvanidi et al., 2018), which limit their wide-spread appli-
cation especially in commercial agriculture.
3.2. Multispectral
Multispectral imaging techniques are based on the theory that each
 Table 1
G.I. Ezenne, et al.

Studies conducted using UASs with different RS technologies for assessment of crop water stress.
Type of UAS Camera Altitude (m) Resolution (cm/ Area (Ha) Type of Crop Purpose Some Indices Correlation (R2) Study location Reference
px) used
Ѱstem gs

Multi-rotor Thermal 5, 10, 20, 30, 8 12 Sugar beet To predict variations in crop water use CWSI Cadiz, Spain Quebrajo et al. (2018)
and 40
Multi-rotor Thermal 120 – 10 Olive trees Assessing crop water stress using thermal Córdoba, Spain Mesas-Carrascosa et al.
drift correction models (2018)
Multi-rotor Thermal 100 13 1.7 Grape Optimizing irrigation scheduling CWSI Sardinia, Italy Matese et al. (2018)
Multi-rotor Thermal 70 < 9 7.5 Grape Estimation of plant water stress CWSI 0.69 0.71 Traibuenas, Navarra, Santesteban et al. (2017)
Spain
Multi- copter Thermal – – – Corn To determine and analyze CWSI CWSI Maryland, USA Ford et al. (2017)
Multi-rotor Thermal 90 – 0.97 Nectarine and Water stress detection CWSI 0.72 0.82 Tatura, Australia Park et al. (2017)
peach
Multi-copter Thermal 60 36 0.04 Grape Assess vine water stress conditions CWSI 0.73 0.82 Maule region, Chile Sepúlveda-Reyes et al.
(2016)
Fixed-wing Thermal and 90 10 32 Barley Water stress detection CWSI Western Denmark Hoffmann et al. (2016)
RGB

Type of UAS Camera Altitude (m) Resolution (cm/ Area (Ha) Type of Crop Objective Some Indices Correlation (R2) Study location Reference
px) used
Ѱstem gs

Fixed-wing Thermal and 250 35 0.6 Mandarin and Testing the hypothesis that the CWSI is a CWSI 0.59-0.66 Seville, Spain Gonzalez-Dugo et al.

161
hyperspectral 550 Orange reliable indicator (2014)
Fixed-wing Thermal and 250 20 7-10 Olive orchards Water stress detection caused by CWSI Southern Spain Calderón et al.
multispectral Verticillium wilt (VW) infection and (2013)
severity
Fixed-wing Thermal 370 49 42 Apricot To characterize the spatial variations in CWSI Murcia, Spain Gonzalez-Dugo et al.
Orange water stress of five fruit tree species (2013)
Peach
Almond
Lemon
Fixed-wing Thermal and 150 20 1.4 Grape Water stress detection CWSI −0.4 California, USA Zarco-Tejada et al.
multispectral PRI 0.68 (2013)
PRInorm
Fixed-wing Thermal and 575 40 0.6 Orange and Water stress detection Tc–Ta 0.34 0.78 Seville, Spain Zarco-Tejada et al.
hyperspectral Mandarin PRI515 (2012)
NDVI 0.38 0.59
0.24 0.32
Unmanned Thermal 150 12 – Almond Water stress detection Tc–Ta 0.74 0.66 California, USA Gonzalez-Dugo et al.
helicopter (2012)
– Thermal and 200 30 5 Grapevine Assess water stress variability CWSI 0.52 0.70 Logrono, Spain Baluja et al. (2012)
multispectral NDVI 0.68 0.75
PRI 0.25 0.46
TCARI/ 0.58 0.84
OSAVI
Unmanned Multispectral 150 15 – Olive, peach and Detect plant water stress Southern Spain Zarco-Tejada et al.
helicopter orange (2009)
Unmanned Thermal 150 40 4 Olive Map CWSI and canopy conductance CWSI 0.82 0.91 Southern Spain Berni et al. (2009)
helicopter
Agricultural Water Management 218 (2019) 158–164
G.I. Ezenne, et al.
where a and b are empirical parameters obtained for each species in the
study environment; VPDi is the vapour pressure deficit (kPa) at the
moment of flight on the ith measurement day.
According to García-Tejero et al. (2018a), thermal imagery in-
formation is better interpreted using NWSB. They evaluated the po-
tential of NWSB obtained from thermal imagery in order to establish a
practical protocol for decisions related to irrigation management in
almond plantations. Some studies have evaluated CWSI indicator in
some crops, sugar beet plants (Quebrajo et al., 2018), grape (Matese
et al., 2018; Pou et al., 2014; García-Tejero et al., 2016; Santesteban
et al., 2017), olive orchard (Egea et al., 2017), Euonymus japonica (eu-
onymus) plants (Gómez-Bellot et al., 2015), citrus (Gonzalez-Dugo et al.,
2014), maize (DeJonge et al., 2015) and found that it is a valuable
indicator for assessing spatial variability of crop water status. CWSI
derived from thermal imagery has also been deployed for high spatial
and temporal monitoring of water stress of the corn canopy in green-
house (Mangus et al., 2016). Results obtained indicate that CWSI esti-
mated from thermal canopy temperature can be used to quantify spatial
and temporal soil moisture variability for irrigation scheduling. In ad-
dition to water stress detection using crop temperature, thermal ima-
ging cameras can also detect water stress using soil moisture index and
evapotranspiration algorithms (Khanal et al., 2017). Evapotranspiration
algorithms have been successfully applied to estimate daily evapo-
transpiration from soybean and corn (Khanal et al., 2017).
4. Real-time irrigation scheduling with thermal UAS
Recent advances in irrigation technology have platforms for con-
tinuous transmitting of data among irrigation controllers, installed field
sensors as well as equipment for variable irrigation rate (Quebrajo
et al., 2018). Thermally-based techniques currently employed in eval-
uating water stress for automatic irrigation scheduling include crop
canopy temperature, CWSI (empirical or theoretical), and time tem-
perature threshold (O’Shaughnessy and Evett, 2010). The CWSI algo-
rithm is mostly used for automatic irrigation control systems in order to
improve crop water productivity. O’Shaughnessy et al. (2012) devel-
oped a method that integrated CWSI and time threshold for automatic
irrigation scheduling. The effectiveness of the method was investigated
on short and long season grain sorghum hybrids. They noted that the
method can effectively trigger the irrigation system for automatic irri-
gation scheduling. Also, Osroosh et al. (2015) developed an adaptive
scheduling algorithm that relied on theoretical CWSI to automatically
irrigate apple trees. Most of these studies utilized the mobility of linear
or center pivot irrigation systems to mount thermal imaging cameras
thereby getting a dynamic scan of the effects of canopy temperature
(DeJonge et al., 2015). CWSI obtained from UAS thermal imaging
cameras can be adapted for real-time irrigation scheduling for max-
imum crop water productivity. Real-time canopy temperature, the main
driver of CWSI, is better estimated automatically from thermal images.
Jiménez-Bello et al. (2011) developed and validated an automatic UAS
thermal imaging process for assessing plant water status that requires
no operator participation. With this, the UAS thermal imaging techni-
ques, coupled with software platforms, will not only estimate the spatial
and temporal crop water stress variation, but drastically reduce the
time needed between image processing, analysis and taking action.
With the water stress information from thermal imaging either from
canopy temperature, soil moisture index or evapotranspiration algo-
rithms, irrigation controllers can be communicated for real time irri-
gation scheduling to improve water use productivity. CWSI from
thermal imagery has great potential to detect instantaneous variations
of water status (Santesteban et al., 2017; Osroosh et al., 2016). Bellvert
et al. (2016) used a UAS with a thermal sensor to fly over grape vine-
yards and obtained water stress information for real-time irrigation
scheduling. Leaf water potential obtained from the CWSI was success-
fully used as an irrigation trigger and there was no negative effect on
yield and composition of the crop. Torres-Rua (2017) also used UAS
162
Agricultural Water Management 218 (2019) 158–164
carrying a thermal camera sensor to estimate evapotranspiration. The
evapotranspiration information obtained was aggregated to irrigation
valve zones that the irrigation technology supports. Reliable data and
information acquired rapidly and easily are therefore essential for as-
sessing water use productivity.
5. Conclusion
CWP exhibit high spatial and temporal variability due to climatic
and agricultural factors. To improve CWP, emphasis should be more on
the climatic factors as well as on irrigation efficiency. UAS technologies
with these commonly used cameras: hyperspectral, multispectral and
thermal can improve CWP. Among these cameras, UAS thermal RS is
identified as a valuable tool for monitoring and assessing crop water
status. UAS thermal imaging cameras are used to estimate climatic
factors that can improve CWP. Thermal RS determines the crop canopy
temperature as a way of quantifying crop water stress. Some indices
have been identified and used for quantifying crop water status using
thermal RS. Among these indices, CWSI is widely used in quantifying
and assessing crop water stress despite its data demand compared to
other indices. CWSI is known to vary in space and time therefore, UAS
thermal imaging cameras have the potential to account for spatial and
temporal variability associated with CWSI. In addition to water stress
detection using crop temperature, thermal imaging cameras can also
detect water stress using soil moisture index and evapotranspiration
algorithms.
Irrigation technologies that improve CWP should be adopted in
order to meet the global food demand associated with increasing global
populations. Conventional irrigation systems alone are not enough to
improve CWP to feed the projected human population increase, espe-
cially in the face of climate change. Recently, researchers have tried to
improve CWP by developing an adaptive irrigation scheduling algo-
rithm that relied on theoretical CWSI obtained from thermal imaging
cameras mounted on the linear or centre pivot irrigation system. This
method failed to account properly for the spatial and temporal variation
associated with crop water stress. Similarly, UAS have also been used
for quasi-time irrigation scheduling where the crop water stress in-
formation obtained is interpreted and used much later after the mea-
surement. For maximum CWP while accounting for spatial and tem-
poral variability of crop water status, there is need for real-time
irrigation scheduling using UAS carrying thermal imaging cameras.
Real-time canopy temperature, the main driver of CWSI is estimated
automatically from thermal images. With the water stress information
from thermal imaging irrigation controllers can be communicated for
real time irrigation scheduling thereby producing maximum crop water
productivity.
Acknowledgment
We want to acknowledge Rhodes University, South Africa for
funding and providing a favourable environment for study.
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