Crop water stress monitoring through precision technologies: A review

Abstract

Rapid population growth associated with climate change has a significant impact on both agricultural and human health, primarily due to water scarcity. According to UNICEF, nearly two-thirds population of the world is affected by severe water scarcity at least one month of every year. Water stress has an adverse impact on crop physiology predominantly in photosynthetic capacity. Thus, crop water optimization in farming systems requires advancement in the monitoring of water stress at different times of the season in order to prevent plant physiological damage and maximise crop water use. Precision agriculture enabled by technical enhancement is able to solve this problem. Precision technologies such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS), UAV Imagery (UAV), Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence (ML & AI) can be used to efficiently detect crop water stress. This article addresses current advancements in crop water stress monitoring and how they could be enhanced further in the near future.