scholarly journals Mapping of Cotton Fields Within-Season Using Phenology-Based Metrics Derived from a Time Series of Landsat Imagery

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 3038
Author(s):  
Dhahi Al-Shammari ◽  
Ignacio Fuentes ◽  
Brett M. Whelan ◽  
Patrick Filippi ◽  
Thomas F. A. Bishop

A phenology-based crop type mapping approach was carried out to map cotton fields throughout the cotton-growing areas of eastern Australia. The workflow was implemented in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, as it is time efficient and does not require processing in multiple platforms to complete the classification steps. A time series of Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) imagery were generated from Landsat 8 Surface Reflectance Tier 1 (L8SR) and processed using Fourier transformation. This was used to produce the harmonised-NDVI (H-NDVI) from the original NDVI, and then phase and amplitude values were generated from the H-NDVI to visualise active cotton in the targeted fields. Random Forest (RF) models were built to classify cotton at early, mid and late growth stages to assess the ability of the model to classify cotton as the season progresses, with phase, amplitude and other individual bands as predictors. Results obtained from leave-one-season-out cross validation (LOSOCV) indicated that Overall Accuracy (OA), Kappa, Producer’s Accuracies (PA) and User’s Accuracy (UA), increased significantly when adding amplitude and phase as predictor variables to the model, than prediction using H-NDVI or raw bands only. Commission and omission errors were reduced significantly as the season progressed and more in-season imagery was available. The methodology proposed in this study can map cotton crops accurately based on the reconstruction of the unique cotton reflectance trajectory through time. This study confirms the importance of phenological metrics in improving in-season cotton fields mapping across eastern Australia. This model can be used in conjunction with other datasets to forecast yield based on the mapped crop type for improved decision making related to supply chain logistics and seasonal outlooks for production.

Author(s):  
Michael Marszalek ◽  
Maximilian Lösch ◽  
Marco Körner ◽  
Urs Schmidhalter

Crop type and field boundary mapping enable cost-efficient crop management on the field scale and serve as the basis for yield forecasts. Our study uses a data set with crop types and corresponding field borders from the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, as documented by farmers from 2016 to 2018. The study classified corn, winter wheat, barley, sugar beet, potato, and rapeseed as the main crops grown in Upper Bavaria. Corresponding Sentinel-2 data sets include the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) and raw band data from 2016 to 2018 for each selected field. The influences of clouds, raw bands, and NDVI on crop type classification are analysed, and the classification algorithms, i.e., support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF), are compared. Field boundary detection and extraction are based on non-iterative clustering and a newly developed procedure based on Canny edge detection. The results emphasise the application of Sentinel’s raw bands (B1–B12) and RF, which outperforms SVM with an accuracy of up to 94%. Furthermore, we forecast data for an unknown year, which slightly reduces the classification accuracy. The results demonstrate the usefulness of the proof-of-concept and its readiness for use in real applications.


Author(s):  
K. V. Ticman ◽  
S. G. Salmo III ◽  
K. E. Cabello ◽  
M. Q. Germentil ◽  
D. M. Burgos ◽  
...  

Abstract. The mangrove forests of Lawaan-Balangiga in Eastern Samar lost significant cover due to the Typhoon Haiyan that struck the region in 2013. The mangroves in the area have since shown signs of recovery in terms of growth and spatial coverage, but these widely varied with locations. This study aims to further examine the status of recovery of mangroves across different locations by analysing the time series trends of selected vegetation and moisture indices: Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Modified Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (MSAVI), and Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI). These indices were extracted from Landsat 8 surface reflectance images, spanning 2014 to 2020, using Google Earth Engine (GEE). The time series analyses showed similar NDVI, MSAVI and NDMI values and trends after the 2013 typhoon event. The trend slopes also indicated high correlation (0.91 – 1.00) between and among the indices, with NDVI having the highest correlation with MSAVI (∼1.00). The study was able to corroborate the previous study on mangroves in Lawaan-Balangiga, by presenting positive trend results in the identified recovered areas. These trends, however, would still have to be validated by collecting and comparing biophysical parameters in the field. The next step of the research would be to identify the factors that contribute to the varying rates of recovery in the areas and to evaluate how this can affect the carbon sequestration rates of recovering mangroves.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Moshiur Rahman ◽  
Andrew Robson

Early prediction of sugarcane crop yield at the commercial block level (unit area of a single crop of the same variety, ratoon or planting date) offers significant benefit to growers, consultants, millers, policy makers, crop insurance companies and researchers. This current study explored a remote sensing based approach for predicting sugarcane yield at the block level by further developing a regionally specific Landsat time series model and including individual crop sowing (or previous seasons’ harvest) date. For the Bundaberg growing region of Australia this extends over a five months period, from July to November. For this analysis, the sugarcane blocks were clustered into 10 groups based on their specific planting or ratoon commencement date within the specified five months period. These clustered or groups of blocks were named ‘bins’. Cloud free (<20%) satellite data from the polar-orbiting Landsat-8 (launched 2013), Sentinel-2A (launched 2015) and Sentinel-2B (launched 2017) sensors were acquired over the cane growing region in Bundaberg (area of 32,983 ha), from the growing season starting in July 2014, with the average green normalised difference vegetation index (GNDVI) derived for each block. The number of images acquired for each season was defined by the number of cloud free acquisitions. Using the Simple Linear Machine Learning (ML) algorithm, the extracted Landsat derived GNDVI values for each of the blocks were converted to Sentinel GNDVI. The average GNDVI of each ‘bin’ was plotted and a quadratic model was fitted through the time series to identify the peak growth stage defined as the maximum GNDVI value. The model derived maximum GNDVI values for each of the bins were then regressed against the average actual yield (t·ha-1) achieved for the respective bin over the five growing years, producing strong correlations (R2 = 0.92 to 0.99). The quadratic curves developed for the different bins were shifted according to the specific planting or ratoon date of an individual block allowing for the peak GNDVI value of the block to be calculated, regressed against the actual block yield (t·ha-1) and the prediction of yield to be made. To validate the accuracies of the 10 time series algorithms representing each of the 10 bins, 592 individual blocks were selected from the Bundaberg region during the 2019 harvest season. The crops were clustered into the appropriate bins with the respective algorithm applied. From a Sentinel image acquired on the 5 May 2019, the prediction accuracies were encouraging (R2 = 0.87 and RMSE = 11.33 (t·ha-1)) when compared to actual harvested yield, as reported by the mill. The results presented in this paper demonstrate significant progress in the accurate prediction of sugarcane yield at the individual sugarcane block level using a remote sensing, time-series based approach.


Author(s):  
Satomi Kimijima ◽  
Masayuki Sakakibara ◽  
Masahiko Nagai ◽  
Nurfitri Gafur

Mining sites development have had a significant impact on local socioeconomic conditions, the environment, and sustainability. However, the transformation of camp-type artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) sites with large influxes of miners from different regions has not been properly evaluated, owing to the closed nature of the ASGM sector. Here, we use remote sensing imagery and field investigations to assess ASGM sites with large influxes of miners living in mining camps in Bone Bolango Regency, Gorontalo Province, Indonesia, in 1995–2020. Built-up areas were identified as indicators of transformation of camp-type ASGM sites, using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, from the time series of images obtained using Google Earth Engine, then correlated with the prevalent gold market price. An 18.6-fold increase in built-up areas in mining camps was observed in 2020 compared with 1995, which correlated with increases in local gold prices. Field investigations showed that miner influx also increased after increases in gold prices. These findings extend our understanding of the rate and scale of development in the closed ASGM sector and the driving factors behind these changes. Our results provide significant insight into the potential rates and levels of socio-environmental pollution at local and community levels.


Insects ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 627
Author(s):  
Jose Carlos Verle Rodrigues ◽  
Michael H. Cosh ◽  
E. Raymond Hunt ◽  
Gilberto J. de Moraes ◽  
Geovanny Barroso ◽  
...  

Red palm mites (Raoiella indica Hirst, Acari: Tenuipalpidae) were first observed in the western hemisphere on the islands and countries surrounding the Caribbean Sea, infesting the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera L.). Detection of invasive pests usually relies upon changes in vegetation properties as result of the pest activity. These changes may be visible in time series of satellite data records, such as Landsat satellites, which have been available with a 16-day repeat cycle at a spatial resolution of 30 m since 1982. Typical red palm mite infestations result in the yellowing of the lower leaves of the palm crown; remote sensing model simulations have indicated that this feature may be better detected using the green normalized difference vegetation index (GNDVI). Using the Google Earth Engine programming environment, a time series of Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper, Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager data was generated for plantations in northern and northeast Brazil, El Salvador, and Trinidad-Tobago. Considering the available studied plantations, there were little or no differences of GNDVI before and after the dates when red palm mites were first revealed at each location. A discussion of possible alternative approaches are discussed related to the limitations of the current satellite platforms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Tengku Adhwa Syaherah Tengku Mohd Suhairi ◽  
Siti Sarah Mohd Sinin ◽  
Eranga M. Wimalasiri ◽  
Nur Marahaini Mohd Nizar ◽  
Anil Shekar Tharmandran ◽  
...  

In this experiment, proximal measurements and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) imagery was used to determine growth stages for bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc.). The crop is a high potential crop due to its ability to yield in marginal environments, but neglected and underutilised due to lack of information on its growth in different environments. This study evaluated the correlation between Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from the ground as well as airborne sensors to test the ability of remotely sensed data to identify growth stages. NDVI and chlorophyll content of bambara groundnut leaves were measured at ground level at 18, 32, 46 and 88 days after planting (DAP) comprising vegetative, flowering, pod formation and maturity growth stages. The UAV imagery for the experimental plots was acquired with 0.2m resolution at maturity. The result showed a significant (p &lt; 0.05) linear relationship between proximal NDVI and chlorophylls content at all growth stages ofgrowth. The R2 varied from 0.57 in the vegetative stage to 0.78 in the flowering stage. Furthermore, NDVI derived from proximal measurements and UAV data showed a significant (p &lt; 0.05) correlation. The observed high correlation between proximal sensors, UAV data and crop parameters suggest that remote sensing technologies can be used for rapid phenotyping to hasten the development of models to assess the performance of underutilised crops for food and nutrition security.


2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 273
Author(s):  
Mengyao Li ◽  
Rui Zhang ◽  
Hongxia Luo ◽  
Songwei Gu ◽  
Zili Qin

In recent years, the scale of rural land transfer has gradually expanded, and the phenomenon of non-grain-oriented cultivated land has emerged. Obtaining crop planting information is of the utmost importance to guaranteeing national food security; however, the acquisition of the spatial distribution of crops in large-scale areas often has the disadvantages of excessive calculation and low accuracy. Therefore, the IO-Growth method, which takes the growth stage every 10 days as the index and combines the spectral features of crops to refine the effective interval of conventional wavebands for object-oriented classification, was proposed. The results were as follows: (1) the IO-Growth method obtained classification results with an overall accuracy and F1 score of 0.92, and both values increased by 6.98% compared to the method applied without growth stages; (2) the IO-Growth method reduced 288 features to only 5 features, namely Sentinel-2: Red Edge1, normalized difference vegetation index, Red, short-wave infrared2, and Aerosols, on the 261st to 270th days, which greatly improved the utilization rate of the wavebands; (3) the rise of geographic data processing platforms makes it simple to complete computations with massive data in a short time. The results showed that the IO-Growth method is suitable for large-scale vegetation mapping.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (8) ◽  
pp. 1449-1452
Author(s):  
P.A. Ukoha ◽  
S.J. Okonkwo ◽  
A.R. Adewoye

This study uses satellite acquired vegetation index data to monitor changes in Akure forest reserve. Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) time series datasets were extracted from Landsat images; extraction was performed on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. The datasets were analyzed using Bayesian Change Point (BCP) to monitor the abrupt changes in vegetation dynamics associated with deforestation. The BCP shows the magnitude of changes over the years, from the posterior data obtained. BCP focuses on changes in the long‐range using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, this returns posterior probability at > 0.5% of a change point occurring at each time index in the time series. Three decades of Landsat data were classified using the random forest algorithm to assess the rate of deforestation within the study area. The results shows forest in 2000 (97.7%), 2010 (89.4%), 2020 (84.7%) and non-forest increase 2000 (2.0%), 2010 (10.6%), 2020 (15.3%). Kappa coefficient was also used to determine the accuracy of the classification.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 4683
Author(s):  
Masoumeh Aghababaei ◽  
Ataollah Ebrahimi ◽  
Ali Asghar Naghipour ◽  
Esmaeil Asadi ◽  
Jochem Verrelst

Vegetation Types (VTs) are important managerial units, and their identification serves as essential tools for the conservation of land covers. Despite a long history of Earth observation applications to assess and monitor land covers, the quantitative detection of sparse VTs remains problematic, especially in arid and semiarid areas. This research aimed to identify appropriate multi-temporal datasets to improve the accuracy of VTs classification in a heterogeneous landscape in Central Zagros, Iran. To do so, first the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) temporal profile of each VT was identified in the study area for the period of 2018, 2019, and 2020. This data revealed strong seasonal phenological patterns and key periods of VTs separation. It led us to select the optimal time series images to be used in the VTs classification. We then compared single-date and multi-temporal datasets of Landsat 8 images within the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform as the input to the Random Forest classifier for VTs detection. The single-date classification gave a median Overall Kappa (OK) and Overall Accuracy (OA) of 51% and 64%, respectively. Instead, using multi-temporal images led to an overall kappa accuracy of 74% and an overall accuracy of 81%. Thus, the exploitation of multi-temporal datasets favored accurate VTs classification. In addition, the presented results underline that available open access cloud-computing platforms such as the GEE facilitates identifying optimal periods and multitemporal imagery for VTs classification.


2021 ◽  
Vol 117 (7/8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nndanduleni Muavhi

This study presents a simple approach of spatiotemporal change detection of vegetation cover based on analysis of time series remotely sensed images. The study was carried out at Thathe Vondo Area, which is characterised by episodic variation of vegetation gain and loss. This variation is attributable to timber and tea plantations and their production cycles, which periodically result in either vegetation gain or loss. The approach presented here was implemented on two ASTER images acquired in 2007 and 2017. It involved the combined use of band combination, unsupervised image classification and Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) techniques. True colour composite (TCC) images for 2007 and 2017 were created from combination of bands 1, 2 and 3 in red, blue and green, respectively. The difference image of the TCC images was then generated to show the inconsistencies of vegetation cover between 2007 and 2017. For analytical simplicity and interpretability, the difference image was subjected to ISODATA unsupervised classification, which clustered pixels in the difference image into eight classes. Two ISODATA derived classes were interpreted as vegetation gain and one as vegetation loss. These classes were confirmed as regions of vegetation gain and loss by NDVI values of 2007 and 2017. In addition, the polygons of vegetation gain and loss regions were created and superimposed over the TCC images to further demonstrate the spatiotemporal vegetation change in the area. The vegetation change statistics show vegetation gain and loss of 10.62% and 2.03%, respectively, implying a vegetation gain of 8.59% over the selected decade.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document