In recent years, viticulture has been affected by the impact of climate change. Winegrowing regions are experiencing geographical shifts in suitable varieties and production areas, mainly due to global warming. In this context, Terroir from Space offers a long-term adaptation strategy in areas where the irreversible degradation of terroir (i.e. local growing conditions) is resulting in vineyards that are no longer cost-effective and being forced to relocate. From Copernicus Sentinel-2 data, several parameters associated with soil, topography, and climate can be obtained for different locations. By feeding this information (plus different in-situ datasets) into a properly trained AI model, Terroir from Space can detect and classify new planting sites in both traditional and non-traditional contexts that exhibit long-term resilience to climate change. Here, historical images available from Sentinel-2 make it possible to study the evolution of a given field and discard sites that are prone to extreme weather, erosion, or flooding. This service is offered as a suitability map that displays planting sites for new vineyards along with optimal grapevine varieties and preferred agronomic practices.
Expertise
“Our team of experts was impressed by the idea “Terroir from Space” because of its relevance and its targetorientation. Through its adoption strategy, the solution makes it possible to bypass the impact of climate change on winegrowers. For these reasons, Terroir from Space was chosen as a winner of the Copernicus Masters University Challenge 2020!” – Thorsten Rudolph, CEO, AZO Anwendungszentrum Oberpfaffenhofen
Terroir from Space
Alessandro Saetta
alessandro.saetta@gmail.com
