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Topic · Ecology

Remote Sensing in Agriculture

Remote Sensing in Agriculture is a research topic within Ecology. Science Explorer counts 45k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the use of remote sensing technology, particularly MODIS and Landsat data, for monitoring vegetation dynamics, phenology, and biomass estimation in response to global change and climate variability. The papers also explore the application of machine learning techniques for land cover classification and the assessment of ecological responses to environmental change.

  • Remote Sensing
  • Vegetation Monitoring
  • Phenology
  • MODIS
  • Landsat
  • NDVI
  • Global Change
  • Climate
  • Biomass Estimation
  • Machine Learning
Research works
45k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
4.5k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+44%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
51% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Remote Sensing in Agriculture

Which countries lead Remote Sensing in Agriculture research?

By volume, China and India publish the most (6.1k and 1.8k works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 6.1k works
  2. 2 India 1.8k works
  3. 3 United States 1.6k works
  4. 4 Germany 462 works
  5. 5 Italy 452 works
  6. 6 Brazil 445 works
  7. 7 Spain 337 works
  8. 8 France 313 works
  9. 9 United Kingdom 269 works
  10. 10 Australia 260 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 50.6%India: 15.1%United States: 13.3%Germany: 3.8%6 others listed: 17.2%51%largest
China6,106 · 50.6%India1,820 · 15.1%United States1,611 · 13.3%Germany462 · 3.8%6 others listed2,075 · 17.2%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Remote Sensing in Agriculture research?

By volume in 2022-now, Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes the most Remote Sensing in Agriculture research, followed by Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Beijing Normal University.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 697 works
  2. 2 Chinese Academy of Agricultural SciencesChina 191 works
  3. 3 Beijing Normal UniversityChina 166 works
  4. 4 University of Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 142 works
  5. 5 Wuhan UniversityChina 119 works
  6. 6 China Agricultural UniversityChina 101 works
  7. 7 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 94 works
  8. 8 United States Department of AgricultureUnited States 91 works
  9. 9 Ministry of Agriculture and Rural AffairsChina 89 works
  10. 10 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 84 works

Who are the leading researchers in Remote Sensing in Agriculture?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Remote Sensing in Agriculture include Yoshua Bengio, Simon Iain Hay and Jun Wang.

  1. 1 Yoshua Bengio Canada 476k citations
  2. 2 Simon Iain Hay United States 452k citations
  3. 3 Jun Wang China 340k citations
  4. 4 Martin McKee United Kingdom 270k citations
  5. 5 Philippe Ciais France 237k citations
  6. 6 Kai You Wang China 224k citations
  7. 7 Peter B. Reich United States 189k citations
  8. 8 Hung Chak Ho China 180k citations
  9. 9 Luc Van Gool Switzerland 177k citations
  10. 10 Douglas Scott Canada 172k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Remote Sensing in Agriculture?

The most cited paper in Remote Sensing in Agriculture is "WorldClim 2: new 1‐km spatial resolution climate surfaces for global land areas" (Stephen E. Fick, Robert J. Hijmans, 2017), with 17,637 citations. Next come "Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone" (15,009) and "Red and photographic infrared linear combinations for monitoring vegetation" (11,851).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 WorldClim 2: new 1‐km spatial resolution climate surfaces for global land areas Stephen E. Fick, Robert J. Hijmans · International Journal of Climatology 15 May 2017 17,637
2 Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone Noel Gorelick, M. Hancher, Mike Dixon et al. · Remote Sensing of Environment Open access 6 Jul 2017 15,009
3 Red and photographic infrared linear combinations for monitoring vegetation Compton J. Tucker · Remote Sensing of Environment Open access May 1979 11,851
4 Overview of the radiometric and biophysical performance of the MODIS vegetation indices ALFREDO R. HUETE, Kamel Didan, Tomoaki Miura et al. · Remote Sensing of Environment Nov 2002 9,991
5 AERONET—A Federated Instrument Network and Data Archive for Aerosol Characterization BRENT N. HOLBEN, T. F. Eck, I. Slutsker et al. · Remote Sensing of Environment Open access Oct 1998 8,604
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Remote Sensing in Agriculture research done?

The largest centres of Remote Sensing in Agriculture research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Nanjing (China), Wuhan (China) and Guangzhou (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Xiaodian.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 1.9k works
  2. 2 NanjingChina 370 works
  3. 3 WuhanChina 330 works
  4. 4 GuangzhouChina 185 works
  5. 5 ÜrümqiChina 157 works
  6. 6 Xi'anChina 155 works
  7. 7 ChengduChina 137 works
  8. 8 LanzhouChina 136 works
  9. 9 KunmingChina 130 works
  10. 10 ShanghaiChina 120 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. XiaodianCN · 27.4 works13×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Remote Sensing in Agriculture than the world average.

See Remote Sensing in Agriculture on the map

Where is the best place to study Remote Sensing in Agriculture?

Among universities, judged by research, China Agricultural University, Northwest A&F University and Jiangsu University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 19%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Jiangsu UniversityNorthwest A&F Univer…China Agricultural U…Wuhan University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1China Agricultural UniversityChina 68.918.8%12.6×101 +88.7%
2Northwest A&F UniversityChina 68.520.2%12.5×70 +171.4%
3Jiangsu UniversityChina 68.432.1%2.1×24 +202.0%
4Wuhan UniversityChina 66.415.8%5.8×119 +30.4%
5Nanjing Agricultural UniversityChina 65.718.8%10.4×58 +60.3%
6Beijing Normal UniversityChina 64.912.5%14.5×166 +11.4%
7University of Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 63.211.0%6.0×142 +31.0%
8Parc Científic de la Universitat de ValènciaSpain 62.419.2%34.2×15 +14.4%
9University of Hong KongChina 59.318.8%2.0×26 +239.8%
10Jilin Agricultural UniversityChina 59.222.8%9.6×19 +508.2%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Remote Sensing in Agriculture, country by country

Is Remote Sensing in Agriculture research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 44% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Remote Sensing in Agriculture.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Remote Sensing in Agriculture as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.057% in 2024.

still counting0.025%0.050%0.075%Remote Sensing in Agriculture0.073% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Remote Sensing in Agriculture over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Remote Sensing in Agriculture9.8% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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