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Area Monitoring System (AMS)
From Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
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The use of the Area Monitoring System (AMS) to monitor area-based schemes in EU Member States became mandatory on 1 January 2023.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) monitored four schemes using AMS in 2023; Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS), Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC), Protein Aid Scheme (PAS) and Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM). AMS will monitor all area-based schemes from 2024 onwards.
AMS is defined as the regular and systematic observation, tracking and assessment of agricultural activities and practices on agricultural areas by Copernicus Sentinel Satellite data or other data with at least equivalent value.
The AMS interprets Sentinel satellite imagery to provide decisions on agricultural activity on all declared land parcels of which there are approximately 1.1 million in Ireland. This is carried out automatically using computer algorithms and continuously throughout the year.
The main source of data for the AMS is the EU’s freely available Sentinel 1 (Radar) and Sentinel 2 (Optical) satellite imagery. Imagery is available every 3-5 days from the Sentinel satellites. The use of photographs (Ortho photos) and satellite images for checking compliance with area-based supports has been in places for many years.
The principle behind the AMS is that the information from the Sentinel satellites is used to determine agricultural activity in the parcel. The Sentinel 1 satellite provides radar imagery using the reflectance of microwave signals that are beamed to earth by the satellite. One of the advantages of Sentinel 1 imagery is that it is not affected by cloud cover as the microwave signals produced by the satellite can penetrate through the clouds. The Sentinel 1 imagery is influenced by different features such as canopy structure, volume and water content and soil surface roughness. For example, an abrupt change in signal reflectance could indicate rough ground and therefore indicate ploughing may have occurred. Sentinel 1 data is useful on arable land where activities like ploughing and harvesting are more pronounced and therefore easier to identify. Permanent pasture activities such as grazing and mowing are more difficult to identity with Sentinel 1 because, even with mowing, there is still vegetation, however short, left on the ground.
The Sentinel 2 satellite provides low resolution optical imagery which is in general more suitable for identifying bare and (partly) vegetated soil, vegetation characteristics, photosynthetic activity (an indication of vegetation/crop growth) and non-agricultural land cover (e.g. water, forest, built-up areas). Unlike Sentinel 1, Sentinel 2 imagery is affected by cloud cover. This is a considerable challenge as Ireland tends to have more than its fair share of cloudy days.
An automated data processing system combines this data from Sentinel along with multiple other data sources to produce the required information on the crop types and agricultural activity on all the declared land parcels. The land parcels are assessed using a system of coloured flags assigned to each parcel (traffic light system). A green flag indicates the parcel is compliant, a yellow flag indicates that the results are inconclusive and further AMS processing is required, and a red flag means the parcel is considered non-compliant and a financial reduction may be applied.
Area Monitoring System (AMS)
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