Abstract :

Agriculture is still a key sector for the local economy at Estarreja region, which has been suffering from several environmental pressures over the past decades. A strong heritage related to the released untreated effluents from industrial activity before the nineties is still present in many of the fields used for agriculture, with persistently high levels of contamination. Additionally, the region is also under the permanent threat of fluvial flooding and of saline intrusion, which is expected to intensify in the future as a consequence of the intensification of extreme weather events (floods and droughts) and mean sea level rise induced by Climate Change, hindering crop yields and severely affecting the local agriculture-based economy. The AGREST project aims to make a spatiotemporal perspective of the agricultural use of the land during the past 35 years at Estarreja region, using Earth Observation data based on Landsat records. Information on the occurrence of river floods, droughts, episodes of saltwater intrusion and discharge of untreated industrial effluents will also be retrieved and related to impacts on crop production. Awareness actions for farmers presenting free available remote sensing applications for crop management will be carried out.