TÜBİTAK International Bilateral Joint Cooperation Program Project, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, BAS Bilateral Joint Cooperation Program, 2023 - 2025
Project number: 222N088
Program: Bilateral Cooperation Program with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS)
Monitoring Rice Fields by Joint Use of Multi‑temporal SAR and Optical Data is a collaborative research project between Hacettepe University (Turkey) and the Space Research and Technology Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The project develops cutting‑edge methods that fuse multi‑temporal Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and optical satellite imagery to estimate rice growth stages and yield more accurately and robustly under variable weather and cultivation conditions.
Develop and validate methodologies that combine multi‑temporal SAR and optical imagery for reliable rice phenology detection and yield estimation.
Create processing workflows that are resilient to cloud cover and diverse agronomic conditions.
Produce field‑level maps and time series products to support precision agriculture and decision‑making for stakeholders.
Foster scientific exchange and capacity building between Turkish and Bulgarian research teams.
Turkey — Project Lead (Hacettepe University)
Prof. Dr. Saygın ABDİKAN — Principal Investigator (Hacettepe University, Faculty of Engineering, Dept. of Geomatics Engineering)
Turkish researchers
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Çağlar BAYIK (Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University, Geomatics Engineering)
Prof. Dr. Füsun BALIK ŞANLI (Yıldız Technical University, Department of Geomatics/Surveying)
Prof. Dr. Yusuf KURUCU (Ege University, Dept. of Plant Science and Plant Nutrition)
Prof. Dr. M. Tolga ESETLİLİ (Ege University, Dept. of Plant Science and Plant Nutrition)
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aliihsan ŞEKERTEKİN (Iğdır University)
Dr.Mustafa ÜSTÜNER (Samsun University, Dept. of Geomatics Engineering)
Bulgaria — Project Lead (BAS)
Dr.Dessislava GANEVA — Project Lead (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, SRTI)
Bulgarian researchers
Dr.Zlatomir Dobrev DIMITROV
Funding: Bilateral Cooperation Program — Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Project No: 222N088)
Partners: Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) under Grant Number 222N088 and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) under Grant Number IC-TR/9/2023-2025. This work has been supported by the Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit of Hacettepe University under grant number FHD-2024-21386.
Narin, Ö. G., Ganeva, D., Abdikan, S., Sekertekin, A., Bayik, C., Chanev, M., Dimitrov, Z., Esetlili, M. T., Alpat, M., Bektas, M., Filchev, L., Ustuner, M., Balik Sanli, F., & Kurucu, Y. (2025). Integration of multi-temporal sentinel-1 and sentinel-2 data for paddy rice crop height estimation and uncertainty assessment using quantile regression forests. Precision Agriculture, 26(94). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-025-10255-w
S. Abdikan et al., "Exploring Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Time Series Sensitivity to Rice Height," 2024 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Agriculture and Forestry (MetroAgriFor), Padua, Italy, 2024, pp. 1-4. doi: $10.1109/MetroAgriFor63043.2024.10948853$.
S. Abdikan et al., "LAI Estimation of Paddy Rice Using Sentinel-2 Vegetation Indices," 2025 International Conference on Machine Intelligence for GeoAnalytics and Remote Sensing (MIGARS), Bucharest, Romania, 2025, pp. 1-4. doi: $10.1109/MIGARS67156.2025.11231787$.
Alpat M, Bektaş M, Bayık Ç, Narin Ö G, Şekertekin A, Üstüner M, Esetlili T, Balık Şanlı F, Kurucu Y & Abdikan S (2025). Çok Zamanlı SAR ve Optik Verilerin Entegrasyonu ile Çeltik Bitki Boyu Analizi ve Ürün Deseni Sınıflandırması, 13. Türkiye Ulusal Fotogrametri ve Uzaktan Algılama Birliği (TUFUAB) Teknik Sempozyumu, 18-20 Haziran 2025, Zonguldak, Türkiye
https://cdn1.beun.edu.tr/geomatik/fd93aefb9b9d790e839f5259b705f513/tufuab2025kitap_xdIJwS4.pdf
Postallı, G. (2025). Paddy rice Leaf Area Index (LAI) estimation with machine learning models using synthetic aperture radar and optical data (Master's thesis, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey).