In North Carolina, PrecisionHawk released a new waterpooling app that was developed in conjunction with ADM Crop Risk Services to provide insurance adjusters and growers a time-saving toolset in assessing damage following an extreme rain event. This aerial data analysis tool automatically and accurately identifies standing water in an agricultural field and is available as a subscription within the DataMapper software package.
The data is collected using a near-infrared sensor and by using water’s natural property of absorbing light in the near-infrared region, the algorithm segments aerial imagery and identifies areas with the highest probability of being standing water.
After the drone comes down, the data is processed either locally or in the cloud and is available as a 2D orthomosaic and 3D products within DataMapper. With one click the waterpooling app can determine total acres mapped, total acres covered with water, and the percent of the field that is covered in water.