Google Earth Engine: Evaluation of the scopes andlimitations for the resolve of agricultural problems in SantaLucía, Barva, Heredia

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15359/

Keywords:

Agriculture, Google Earth Engine, land use, satellite images, Sentinel 2

Abstract

Google Earth Engine (GEE) is presented as an innovative tool for agricultural manage- ment through the geospatial analysis of satellite imagery. In this study, GEE was used to classify soils at the Santa Lucía Experimental Farm (FESL), employing Sentinel-2 imagery from the Copernicus program with a resolution of 20 × 20 m throughout the year 2022. Four training classes were considered (pastures, forests, coffee, and infras- tructure) using the Random Forest classifier. Additionally, a pixel-by-pixel confusion matrix was generated for both the training and validation processes. The results show an overall accuracy of 96% for the training set and 61% for the validation set, highlighting the model’s efficiency in class distinction, although with potential for improvement in distinguishing between coffee and forest classes.


References

Alonso, J. C. y Hoyos, C. C. (2025). Una introducción a los modelos de Clasificación empleando R. Cali: Editorial Universidad Icesi. DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18046/EUI/bda.h.5.

Bontemps, S.; Arias, M.; Cara, C.; Dedieu, G.; Guzzonato, E.; Hagolle, O.; Inglada, J.; Matton, N.; Morin, D.; Popescu, R. J. R. S. (2015).

Building a data set over 12 globally distributed sites to support the development of agriculture monitoring applications with Sentinel-2.Remote Sensing, 7, 16062-16090.

Bruzzone, L.; Bovolo, F.; Paris, C.; Solano-Correa, Y.T.; Zanetti, M.; Fernández-Prieto. (2017) D. Analysis of multitemporal Sentinel-2 images in the framework of the ESA Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions. In Proceedings of the 2017 9th International Workshop on the Analysis of Multitemporal Remote Sensing Images (MultiTemp), Brugge, Belgium, 27-29; pp. 1-4.

Chanev, M., Kamenova, I., Dimitrov, P., & Filchev, L. (2025). Evaluation of Sentinel-2 Deep Resolution 3.0 Data for Winter Crop Identification and Organic Barley Yield Prediction. Remote Sensing, 17(6),957. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17060957.

EOS Data Analytics. (2025). Índices de vegetación en la agricultura digital. Recuperado de https://eos.com/es/blog/indices-de-vegetacion/.

FAO. (2019). The State of Food and Agriculture 2019: Moving forward on food loss and waste reduction. FAO. Recuperado de: https://www.fao.org/publications/home/fao-flagship-publications/the-state-of-food-and-agriculture/2019/en.

Godfray, H. C. J., Beddington, J., Crute, I., Haddad, L., Lawrence, D., Muir, J., Pretty, J., Robinson, S., Thomas, S., Toulmin, C. (2010).

Food security: The challenge of feeding 9 billion people. Science, 327(5967), 812-818.

Gorelick, N., Hancher, M., Dixon, M., Ilyushchenko, S., Thau, D., & Moore, R. (2017). Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial

analysis for everyone. Remote Sensing of Environment, 202, 18-27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2017.06.031 .

Hernández, H. J. I., Martínez, F. A., Torres, R. A. A., Orozco, S. A. P., Torres, L. R., Cienfuegos, M. F., Cerón, P. J. L. (2023). Desarrollo e implementación de clasificadores de imágenes mediante el empleo de algoritmos de aprendizaje por transferencia utilizando Labview, Python y Google Teachable Machine. Doi: 10.59920/JBSW8482.

IPCC. (2019). Special Report on Climate Change and Land. Intergovern-mental Panel on Climate Change. Recuperado de: https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/.

Khan, M. A., Khan, S., & Khan, M. A. (2024). Comparative study of multiple algorithms classification for land use and land cover change detection in Mardan. Heliyon, 10(5), e15849. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envc.2024.101069.

Khorram. S, van der Wiele. C, Koch. F, Nelson. S, Potts. M. (2016). Principles of Applied Remote Sensing. Springer. DOI

10.1007/978-3-319-22560-9.

Kumar, R., & Singh, A. (2023). Accurate classification of land use and land cover using a boundary-specific two-level learning approach

based on SVM and kNN. Journal of Environmental Management, 328, 116949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.116949.

Lee, J., Kim, K., Lee, K. 2024. Multi-Sensor Image Classification Using the Random Forest Algorithm in Google Earth Engine with KOMP-SAT-3/5 and CAS500-1 Images. Remote Sens. 16, 4622. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16244622 .

Lefulebe, L. M., & Musakwa, W. (2023). Classification of urban land use and land cover with k-nearest neighbour classifier in the city of Cape Town, South Africa Cape Flats case study. ISPRS Archives, XLVIII-1/W2-2023, 967-974. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-1-W2-2023-967-2023.

Lottering, R., Peerbhay, K., & Adelabu, S. (2025). Remote Sensing Applications in Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences. Applied Sciences, 15(8), 4537. https://doi.org/10.3390/app15084537.

Mahapatra, D. (2014). Analyzing Training Information From Random Forests for Improved Image Segmentation. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 23(4), 1504-1512. doi:10.1109/tip.2014.2305073

MINAE. (2020). Sistema Nacional de Monitoreo de Cobertura y Uso de la Tierra y Ecosistemas. Recuperado de: www.simocute.go.cr.

MINAE. (2020). Diagnóstico de mapeo sobre cobertura y uso de la tierra y ecosistemas: Sistema Nacional de Monitoreo de Cobertura y Uso de la Tierra y Ecosistemas (SIMOCUTE). Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía. Recuperado de http://www.simocute.go.cr

Mora Ramírez, S. (2018). Desempeño Sector Agro. Secretaría Ejecutiva de Planificación Sectorial Agropecuaria. http://www.sepsa.go.cr/docs/2018-007 Desempenno_SectorAgro_2017.pdf.

Mora Ramírez, S. (2020, agosto). Indicadores Macroeconómicos 2016-2020. Secretaría Ejecutiva de Planificación Sectorial Agropecuaria.http://www.sepsa.go.cr/docs/2020-012-Indicadores_Macroeconomicos_2016-2020.pdf .

Mroczek, P., & Wójcik, M. (2023). Support vector machine algorithm for mapping land cover types in Senegal. Land, 12(3), 24. https://doi.org/10.3390/earth5030024.

Olaya, V. (2020) Sistemas de Información Geográfica. ISBN:978-1-71677-766-0

Perilla, A. & Mas, F. (2020). Google Earth Engine (GEE): una poderosa herramienta que vincula el potencial de los datos masivos y la eficacia del procesamiento en la nube. Investigaciones Geográficas Instituto de Geografía.UNAM SSN: 2448-7279 DOI:dx.doi.org/10.14350/rig.59929. NOTA TÉCNICA Núm. 101 Abril 2020 E59929. www.investigacionesgeograficas.unam.mx.

Phiri. D, Simwanda. M, Salekin. S, Nyirenda. V, Muruyama. Y, Ranagalage. M. (2020). Sentinel-2 Data for Land Cover/Use Mapping:

A Review. Remote Sensing. 12(14), 2291. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12142291 .

Rynkiewicz, A., Hościło, A., Aune-Lundberg, L., Nilsen, A. B., & Lewandowska, A. (2025). Detection and Quantification of Vegetation Los-

ses with Sentinel-2 Images Using Bi-Temporal Analysis of Spectral Indices and Transferable Random Forest Model. Remote Sensing,

17(6), 979. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17060979 .

Segarra, J., Buchaillot, M. L., Araus, J. L., & Kefauver, S. C. (2020). Remote Sensing for Precision Agriculture: Sentinel-2 Improved Featu-

res and Applications.Agronomy, 10(5), 641. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10050641

Shelestov, A., Lavreniuk, M., Kussul, N., & Skakun, S. (2017). Exploring Google Earth Engine platform for Big Data processing: classification of multi-temporal satellite imagery for crop mapping. Frontiers in Earth Science, 5, 17.

Solórzano, J. V., & Perilla, G. A. (2022). Cómo usar Google Earth Engine y no fallar en el intento. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental. https://doi.org/10.22201/ciga.9786073066969e.2022

Tan, Y.-C., Duarte, L., & Teodoro, A. C. (2024). Comparative study of random forest and support vector machine for land cover classification and post-wildfire change detection. Land, 13(11), 1878. https://doi.org/10.3390/land13111878.

Wang, Q., Blackburn, G. A., Onojeghuo, A. O., Dash, J., Zhou, L., Zhang, Y., & Atkinson, P. M. (2017). Fusion of Landsat 8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI data. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2017.2683444

Xi, E. 2022 Image Classification and Recognition Based on Deep Learning and Random Forest Algorithm, Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing. 2013181, 9 pages, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/2013181.

Yang, Y., Wang, Y., & Li, X. (2024). Generating high-precision farmland irrigation pattern maps using Google Earth Engine. Agricultural Water Management, 287, 109302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109302.

Downloads

Published

2025-12-12

How to Cite

Bastos Gutiérrez, S. ., Paniagua Jiménez, D., & Vargas Martínez, A. . (2025). Google Earth Engine: Evaluation of the scopes andlimitations for the resolve of agricultural problems in SantaLucía, Barva, Heredia. Revista Geográfica De América Central., 1(76), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.15359/

Most read articles by the same author(s)