Research
Research lines, funded projects, datasets, and open-source tools in remote sensing and agricultural monitoring.
My work develops satellite-based methods to map and monitor agriculture — from smallholder fields in Mexico and South Asia to large-scale commodity crops in Brazil. It is organized around two main research lines, supported by open code and data.
🗺️ Where I Work
The map shows a selection of study sites and related work; see Publications for the full list. Click a site or area for details and links, or open the list below. Boundaries: Natural Earth.
All study sites and related work (20 sites)
- South America: Cloud cover frequency over South American croplands (15 years of MODIS).
Prudente et al. (2020), RSASE · News: The problem of cloud cover - Mexico: NASA LCLUC project on maize sowing dates and climate adaptation; start-of-season mapping in smallholder systems.
Prudente et al. (2025), RSASE · News: NASA LCLUC meeting 2024 · News: NASA LCLUC meeting 2023 - Northern and central India: Ongoing studies across the Indo-Gangetic Plain and central India (Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh), including start-of-season mapping in Bihar and crop yield, residue burning and groundwater tradeoffs in the wheat belt.
Prudente et al. (2025), RSASE - Michigan, USA: Mapping cover crop species with Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2.
Shao et al. (2026), Remote Sensing · News: cover crops in Michigan - Roraima, Brazil: PhD research: multisensor optical-SAR land use and land cover characterization in Roraima (Amazon).
PhD thesis (INPE, 2021) · Prudente et al. (2022), ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens. · Prudente et al. (2020), IGARSS · Prudente et al. (2023), SBSR - Mato Grosso, Brazil: Cropland expansion, intensification and reduction, 2000/01–2017/18; sowing and harvest dates of soybean and corn from Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2; Sentinel-1 polarimetric SAR crop mapping in Campo Verde.
Vieira et al. (2022), RSASE · Santana et al. (2025), Remote Sensing · Oldoni et al. (2020), ISPRS Archives · Oldoni et al. (2019), SBSR (crop mapping) · Oldoni et al. (2019), SBSR (crop dynamics) - Pernambuco, Brazil: SinergIA: mapping forage cactus and energy crops in the Semi-Arid.
News: SinergIA project - Paraná, Brazil: Statewide crop mapping and statistics (soybean, corn, canola, annual crops), soybean and corn sowing and harvest dates, and the Lontras rivers micro-basin studies (Salto do Lontra).
Santana et al. (2025), Remote Sensing · Prudente et al. (2014), Engenharia Agrícola · Wrublack et al. (2013), Cien. Inv. Agr. · Vieira et al. (2019), SBSR · Becker et al. (2015), SBSR - Western Paraná: GEEadas: Earth Engine-based detection of frost damage in corn; crop information from Landsat-8/OLI and MODIS spatiotemporal fusion.
Chaves et al. (2025), RSASE · Oldoni et al. (2021), Geocarto International · News: frost mapping model - Cascavel, PR: MSc research: 2015–16 terrestrial-sensing field campaign on bean and soybean, and land cover mapping in western Paraná.
MSc dissertation (UNIOESTE, 2017) · Prudente et al. (2019), Geocarto International · Prudente et al. (2021), J. Agric. Studies · Prudente et al. (2019), ISPRS Archives · Prudente et al. (2017), Engenharia Agrícola · Ganascini et al. (2022), Aust. J. Crop Sci. · Prudente et al. (2016), Selper · News: field campaign - Medianeira, PR: SafraWatch: per-field crop-season monitoring prototype.
News: SafraWatch - Iguaçu National Park, PR: Forest fragmentation dynamics in the park's direct influence area.
Munhos et al. (2025), Environ. Monit. Assess. - Luís Eduardo Magalhães, BA: LEM/LEM+ benchmark database for tropical agricultural remote sensing in western Bahia, and Sentinel-1 SAR classification of first- and second-season crops.
Sanches et al. (2018), ISPRS Archives · Sanches et al. (2020), ISPRS Archives · Oldoni et al. (2020), ISPRS Archives · Prudente et al. (2019), SBSR · News: SAR vs optical demo - Barreiras, BA: Expansion of center-pivot irrigated agriculture in western Bahia.
Oliveira et al. (2019), SBSR - Guanambi, BA: Grapevine polarimetric dynamics with dual-pol Sentinel-1 (Queiroz et al., 2025, SBSR).
Publications - Unaí, MG: Expansion of the center-pivot irrigated perimeter (Lima et al., 2012, CONBEA).
Publications - Southern Santa Catarina (Turvo): Irrigated rice mapping with Sentinel-1/2, segmentation and deep learning, including Andre Garcia's PhD at INPE (co-advisor).
Garcia et al. (2025), JIDM · Garcia et al. (2025), Appl. Comput. Geosci. · Islam et al. (2025), RSASE · Garcia et al. (2024), ISPRS Archives · Garcia et al. (2023), GEOINFO - Iracemápolis and Cosmópolis, SP: UAV texture features for Bermudagrass detection in sugarcane (Iracemápolis) and optical-SAR soybean yield prediction (Cosmópolis).
Girolamo-Neto et al. (2019), Drones · Cunha et al. (2024), Agriculture - Maryland, USA: Detection of impervious-surface change with Sentinel-2 (University of Maryland fellowship).
Zhang et al. (2020), IGARSS - Pelotas river basin (SC/RS): Mercury in the sediment of the Pelotas river basin.
Remor et al. (2018), Engenharia Agrícola
🌱 Smallholder Agricultural Monitoring
University of Michigan · NASA LCLUC program
In Dr. Meha Jain’s lab at SEAS, I develop remote sensing products that estimate crop sowing times, areas, and dynamics in smallholder farming systems, where small field sizes and data scarcity make conventional approaches fail. The core study region is Mexico’s maize systems, funded by the NASA LCLUC program, where we use multi-decadal Sentinel and Landsat time series in Google Earth Engine to track how farmers adapt sowing decisions to a changing climate.
Highlights
- Sowing-date (Start of Season) detection from optical imagery time series, validated with ground-truth fieldwork — published in Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment (2025).
- Mapping maize transitions across Mexico from 2000 to the present to understand policy, market, and climate drivers.
- Ongoing work: automating agricultural ground-truth generation by fusing Google Street View, satellite time series, and generative AI (Google Cloud Research Credits, 2026–2027).
🛰️ Brazilian Agriculture & Satellite Data Cubes
INPE · UNESP · CNPq · FAPESP · Fundação Araucária collaborations
With collaborators in Brazil, I work on large-scale crop monitoring that combines optical and SAR time series, machine learning, and Analysis-Ready Data cubes.
Active projects
- Large-Scale Crop Monitoring Integrating Medium Spatial Resolution Satellite Data Cubes (FAPESP, 2026–2029) — within-season classification of soybean, corn, and cotton in the Cerrado, differentiating crops from native vegetation using harmonized Sentinel-2/Landsat data cubes. PI: Dr. Michel E. D. Chaves (UNESP); my role: Associate Researcher.
- SinergIA (CNPq, 2025–2027) — remote sensing and AI for mapping energy crops in the Brazilian Semi-Arid Region, fusing Sentinel-1 SAR and Sentinel-2 optical time series with deep learning. My role: International Technical Lead.
- NAPI AGROGENÔMICA (Fundação Araucária, 2025–2030) — Support Center for Research and Innovation studying agricultural soil microbial communities in Paraná, Brazil, and their interactions with agroenvironmental, chemical, physical, and geographic variables. PI: Dr. E. Mercante; my role: International Collaborator.
- GEEadas — a Google Earth Engine tool for automatic detection of adverse-frost stress in crops, published in RSASE (2025) and featured by Agência FAPESP. Explore the interactive GEE app.
- Cloud cover & optical monitoring — a 15-year MODIS analysis quantifying how cloud cover frequency limits optical remote sensing of agriculture across South America, published in RSASE (2020). Explore the interactive GEE app or read more.
- Brazil-Crop dataset (in development) — an open benchmark of ~9,400 field observations and 2,200 geotagged photos across Paraná and Mato Grosso for agricultural remote sensing applications.
- SafraWatch (proof of concept) — an interactive hub that reconstructs a field’s multi-year crop history from Sentinel-2/Sentinel-1 and automatically detects sowing, SOS/POS/EOS and cropping intensity per agricultural year, extending my Start-of-Season method (RSASE, 2025). Study region: Medianeira, PR. Try the live demo (spins up on demand) · read more. Source code to be released once the demo is validated.
💻 Code & Tools
Open-source repositories, including small Python utilities with step-by-step tutorials in their READMEs.