Application of Remote Sensing Data for Locust Research and Management—A Review

Recently, locust outbreaks around the world have destroyed agricultural and natural vegetation caused massive damage endangering food security. Unusual heavy rainfalls in habitats of desert (Schistocerca gregaria) lack monitoring due to political conflicts or inaccessibility those lead swarms migrating over Arabian Peninsula, East Africa, India Pakistan. At same time, Moroccan (Dociostaurus maroccanus) some Central Asian countries Italian (Calliptamus italicus) Russia China crops despite developed ongoing control measurements. These recent events underline that risk by pests is as present ever affects 100 million human lives technical progress monitoring, prediction approaches. Remote sensing has become one most important data sources management. Since 1980s, remote applications accompanied many management activities contributed an improved more effective plagues. open-access archives well cloud computing provide unprecedented opportunity for sensing-based research. Additionally, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems bring up new prospects a faster control. Nevertheless, full capacity available possibilities not been exploited yet. This review paper provides comprehensive quantitative overview international research articles focusing on application We reviewed 110 published last four decades, categorized them into different aspects main topics summarize achievements gaps further development. The results reveal strong focus three species—the locust, migratory (Locusta migratoria), Australian plague (Chortoicetes terminifera)—and corresponding regions interest. There still studies other pest species such American piceifrons), South cancellata), brown (Locustana pardalina) red (Nomadacris septemfasciata). In terms applied sensors, utilized Advanced Very-High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre VEGETATION (SPOT-VGT), Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Landsat mainly land cover mapping. Application geomorphological metrics radar-based soil moisture comparably rare previous acknowledgement their importance outbreaks. Despite great advance usage resources, we identify several potential future improve understanding capacities use supporting outbreak-