Exploring Stability of Crops in Agricultural Landscape Through GIS Tools and Open Data

Climate change is a well-known issue in both the scientific community and public opinion that, in the long term, could increase frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Several models have been developed to estimate damages caused to crops by flooding, but most of them assume that crops are stable and unchanged over time. Conversely, yearly crop rotation is known to be common in agricultural areas making potential flooded areas highly varying along years. In a flood damage estimation context, a proper mapping of actual crops in flooded areas is crucial to make deductions reliable. Open data from institutional players, yearly updated, can be proficiently used for this purpose, providing useful information for a more robust estimate of damages. In this work, with reference to a paradigmatic area located in the western part of the Piemonte Region (NW-Italy), stability and spatial pattern of variability of crops was investigated by coupling spatial information from cadastral maps and crop type information obtained for free from the Regional Geoportal and Agriculture Register service, respectively. Investigation considered the period 2015-2020 and was achieved by comparing crop type maps (generated at parcel level) along time. The proposed methodology is expected to be useful for assessing land use intensity. Results showed a great rate of crop variation in the area, suggesting that, to obtain a robust damage estimation in case of flood, crop type maps have to be yearly updated.

Automated summary

This study investigates the stability and spatial variability of crops in a specific area in the western part of the Piemonte Region, Italy, and proposes a method to assess land use intensity. The results show a high rate of crop variation in the area, indicating the need for yearly updates of crop type maps for robust flood damage estimation.