MAGDA (Meteorological Assimilation From Galileo And Drones For Agriculture) is a project funded under the H2020 program to develop a suite of tools for monitoring the atmosphere and weather, and thus provide support in the agricultural field.
How does the project work?
Active from November 2022 and with an expected end in April 2025, MAGDA aims to develop an integrated and modular system capable of providing forecasts in case of severe weather and providing alerts on irrigation in crop areas. This system will be based on information from different technologies and monitoring tools: ground stations, satellite and drone information, and from GNSS (the Global Navigation Satellite System), including the European Galileo system. Alerts and warnings processed on the basis of the collected data will then be issued through a Farm Managemen System, developed under the project, so as to reach farmers and farm operators in a timely and effective manner. MAGDA’s monitoring system will be designed to provide near real-time indications: thus, it will be able to operate together as both an early warning system and a tool for irrigation planning.
What are the expected results?
- Explore the untapped potential of assimilating GNSS (Galileo)derived, drone-derived, Copernicus EO-derived datasets, and in-situ weather sensors
- Develop high-resolution and short-range numerical weather forecasts and hydrological models for irrigation performance and water accounting
- Provide valuable information about severe weather and irrigation operations directly to farmers and agricultural operators
- Enable augmented short-term weather forecasts and irrigation advisories to farmers by a dedicated dashboard and Application Programming Interface (API)
- Deploy sensors, GNSS and drones, to monitor atmospheric variables at high spatial resolution in the vicinity of large farms and cultivated areas
- Validate very-short range nowcasting systems for the prediction of severe weather in support of precision agriculture activities
- Increase awareness and impact through effective and measurable communication and dissemination activities
What does CIMA Research Foundation do?
Within the MAGDA project, CIMA Research Foundation is responsible in particular for simulations with the WRF meteorological model to try to improve the prediction of extreme events with short-term forecasts and a medium to long-term forecast using data assimilation techniques of various observations including reflectivity from radar, columnar contents of water vapour from GNSS and vertical profiles detected with the use of meteodrones on 3 study areas located in Italy, France and Romania and focused on different types of agriculture.