THE USE OF REMOTE SENSING AND GIS TECHNIQUES IN AGRICULTURAL APPLICATIONS 
Dr. E. Vozikis, V. Printzios, V. Pagounis 
GEOMET Ltd 
Messogion Ave. 330 
GR - 15341 Athens, Greece 
ISPRS 
Commission VIl, Working Group 10 
KEY WORDS 
Remote Sensing, Agriculture, Land_Use, Processing, Classification, Multitemporal Image Interpretation, Multitemporal 
Image Classification, Satellite image map. 
ABSTRACT 
The following paper details important aspects and summarises the methodology applied and the results derived during 
the Remote Sensing control of surface subsidised arable land and forage areas which were carried out in Greece in 
1995 by GEOMET Ltd, Athens, Greece under contract of Greek Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), under supervision of the 
European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) in Brussels and Joint Research Center (JRC) in Ispra, 
Italy. 
The reform of the "Common Agricultural Policy" of the EC that became active in 1992, has introduced some changes in 
order to control the production, the marketing and the prices of the agricultural products. Part of this policy is the 
granting of subsidies to the farmers (of specific cultivation's) and cattle-breeders. These subsidies are ruled by some 
regulations and are offered to the producers that are interested to submit a declaration for their products, declaring. 
the subsidised type of crop which they are willing to cultivate, as well as the location and the area of the relevant plots. 
In 1995, a sample of 2895 declarations for subsidy in two control zones have been controlled by Remote Sensing from 
GEOMET Ltd in Greece. The MoA was responsible for the preparation, collection, checking of the conformity and 
fullness of the declarations which were delivered to the contractor. The contractor then checked, for each declared 
field, the correctness of its declared area and the kind of cultivation against reality, by the use of multitemporal satellite 
data. The declarations were then classified to " accepted ", "doubtful" and "rejected" . The Ministry finally carried 
out a ground truth survey, for all the rejected declarations as well as for the 20% of the doubtful ones, in order to 
verify the credibility of the Remote Sensing methodology and take the final decisions for subsidies. 
1. CONTROL ZONES - SAMPLE OF THE 10232 from which 7547 were subsidised, corresponding 
DECLARATIONS in an area of 13,477 Ha and 10,366 Ha respectively. 
The two control zones AITO and PYRG were located in 2. MATERIAL SELECTION 
the west of central Greece and north-west of 
Peloponissos respectively. 
The contro| zone of Nomos Aitoloakarnania (AITO) . 
covers a circle with a radius of 25 km with centre co- For the control zone AITO the cartographic reference of 
; gives AC 94! — 54954! the declared plots, consolidation and distribution maps 
Ordinates : qr 39. 24 and A2 f of MoA in scales 1: 2,000 and 1: 5,000 were used. On 
the other hand, for the control zone PYRG the major 
cartographic material was orthophotomaps in scale 
1: 5,000 but also consolidation and distribution maps of 
MoA were used for the areas that are not covered by 
orthophotomaps. 
Additionally, General Use maps in scale 1: 200,000 
issued by the National Statistical Service of Greece 
(NSSG) for every Nomos and Topographic Maps in scale 
of 1:50,000 issued by the Hellenic Military Geographic 
Service (HMGS) were used. 
2.1 Maps - Orthophotomaps 
The most of the zone is lowlands and drained by two 
rivers, the Aheloos and the Evinos. The main crops are 
maize, cotton, clover (as fodder crop) and the second 
ones are cereals, rice, tobacco and watermelons. 
The control zone of Nomos llia (PYRG) covers a circle 
with a radius of 25 km with centre co-ordinates : 
Q- 37? 49' and A» 21? 17' 
The most of the zone is lowlands and drained by the 
Pinios river. The main crops are maize (corn), vegetables, 
potatoes, watermelons and the second ones are cereals 
and fodder crops. 
In control zone AITO a sample of 1444 declarations 
Spread within 9 communities was selected where as, in 
control zone PYRG 1451 declarations spread within 17 
communities. The total amount of declared plots was 
2.2 Satellite Images 
Two main factors have been taken into account for the 
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International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B7. Vienna 1996 
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