Interpretation of remote sensing imagery to assess the sustainability of agricultural systems

Abstract

The province of Misiones (Argentina) is currently being spontaneously colonized by a high inflow of farmers with few resources who are settling on state-owned lands covered by primeval rain forest. Weare developing a tool using SPOT images to monitor this extremely dynamic process and to locate and assess problems of sustainability.

Indicators extracted from SPOT images were constructed for 50 farms on a settlement site, for the recognition is a diagnosis based on equilibration theory. Successful classification of the farms was obtained in 70 to 80 per cent of cases by applying multivariate statistical methods to these indicators. On this research site. the overall sustainability diagnosis usingSPOT data was found to be satisfactory.

These results will now enable us to adapt and extend the diagnosis to the organisational level of local agrarian systems.