Date of Award
2-10-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Agriculture, MSA
First Advisor
John Nowlin
Committee Members
Ahmed Hashem; Joseph Massey; Michele Reba
Call Number
LD 251 .A566t 2022 P53
Abstract
Row crop agriculture in Arkansas relies predominantly on groundwater resources for irrigation. This places great demand on the Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer (MRVAA), which is in a current state of decline. The Eastern Arkansas region produces commodity crops including soybeans, rice, corn, cotton, and peanuts, all of which utilize irrigation for optimal productivity. Conservation practices that reduce groundwater use include precision land leveling, multiple inlet rice irrigation, and computerized hole size selection for furrow irrigation. To collect elevation data to irrigate efficiently, these practices require precision agriculture technology, more specifically Real-Time Kinematic–Global Navigation Satellite Systems (RTK-GNSS). As RTK-GNSS technologies have become cheaper and smaller, the use of Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) technology has grown to rival the accuracies of traditional agro-terrestrial survey methods. This thesis will assess the relative accuracy, precision, and efficiency between RTK/Post Processed Kinematic (RTK/PPK sUAS) and agro-terrestrial survey methods to develop and test a new, more efficient method of agricultural topographic modeling.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Pickett, Richard A. Jr, "Comparisons Of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Agro-Terrestrial Surveys: Techniques to Determine Field Elevation Surfaces for Improved Crop and Water Management." (2023). Student Theses and Dissertations. 211.
https://arch.astate.edu/all-etd/211
