IGAC: Monitoring Agricultural Crops with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The Colombian Research and Development Centre for Geographic Information (CIAF), which is part of UN-SPIDER's Regional Support Office in Colombia, IGAC, is performing technical studies on airborne data collection using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The goal of the project is to obtain spectral vegetation indices, used to generate basic and thematic mapping at large scales in order to develop projects in precision agriculture and monitoring of crop fields.

Using data and information derived from UAVs could reduce costs, improve crop profitability and reduce the environmental impact of agricultural activity, since the application of agrochemicals can be adjusted to actual crop requirements.

The project is jointly conducted with CORPOICA (Colombian Corporation of Agricultural Research), with support from the German Aerospace Center (DLR).