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Earth Observations and Crop Models for Sustainable Agricultural Management

A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Remote Sensing in Agriculture and Vegetation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2019) | Viewed by 86960

Special Issue Editors

Key Laboratory of Agricultural Remote Sensing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China
Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, CAAS, 12 Zhongguancun Nan Dajie, Beijing 100081, China
Interests: remote sensing applications in agriculture; data assimilation; agro-geoinformatics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
National Engineering Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture (NERCITA), Beijing Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, 11 Middle Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100097, China
Interests: remote sensing; agronomic modelling; UAV-based sensors; precision farming
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Modern agricultural management strongly requires intensive and extensive information from earth observation and spatially explicit models (SEMs). Thanks to the rapid development of earth observation systems and data processing technologies, the quantity and quality of the available information for agriculture have improved substantially in the past decade. On the other hand, crop models have contributed greatly to agricultural management and research. Both process-based and statistical crop models often require wide-spectrum data input, and inadequate data input will limit the performance and thus the applications of crop models. Many innovative research works have been committed to incorporating earth observations into crop models to facilitate agricultural management, but there are still gaps to be met for sustainable and profitable agricultural management.

To better understand the challenges and opportunities to integrate earth observation with crop modelling technologies, this Special Issue invites contributions on: (i) innovative EO methods to derive crop parameters; (ii) novel spatially-explicit crop models towards a better understanding of agricultural production system and ecosystems; and (iii) remote sensing data assimilation with crop models. Submissions are encouraged to cover a broad range of topics that may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • EO quantitative inversion of crop and relevant environmental parameters
  • Calibration and verification of various of EO datasets including Sentinel and Gaofen imagery
  • Multi-sensor and multi-system EO data fusion
  • EO for monitoring crop growth, health and yield
  • EO for pests and diseases
  • Spatially-explicit crop model development, implementation, and validation
  • Data assimilation algorithms, system and uncertainty
Prof. Zhongxin Chen
Dr Jianxi Huang
Prof. Guijun Yang
Prof. Shibo Fang
Prof. Zhenhong Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Multispectral imagery 
  • Hyperspectral imagery 
  • SAR processing 
  • Thermal infrared imagery
  • Lidar 
  • UAV/GAV sensors 
  • Quantitative remote sensing 
  • Data fusion 
  • Data assimilations 
  • Crop modelling
  • Crop growth and health 
  • Pest and diseases 
  • Yield mapping and prediction

Published Papers (16 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 3034 KiB  
Article
Precise Crop Classification Using Spectral-Spatial-Location Fusion Based on Conditional Random Fields for UAV-Borne Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Imagery
by Lifei Wei, Ming Yu, Yajing Liang, Ziran Yuan, Can Huang, Rong Li and Yiwei Yu
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(17), 2011; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11172011 - 27 Aug 2019
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 3774
Abstract
The precise classification of crop types is an important basis of agricultural monitoring and crop protection. With the rapid development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology, UAV-borne hyperspectral remote sensing imagery with high spatial resolution has become the ideal data source for the [...] Read more.
The precise classification of crop types is an important basis of agricultural monitoring and crop protection. With the rapid development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology, UAV-borne hyperspectral remote sensing imagery with high spatial resolution has become the ideal data source for the precise classification of crops. For precise classification of crops with a wide variety of classes and varied spectra, the traditional spectral-based classification method has difficulty in mining large-scale spatial information and maintaining the detailed features of the classes. Therefore, a precise crop classification method using spectral-spatial-location fusion based on conditional random fields (SSLF-CRF) for UAV-borne hyperspectral remote sensing imagery is proposed in this paper. The proposed method integrates the spectral information, the spatial context, the spatial features, and the spatial location information in the conditional random field model by the probabilistic potentials, providing complementary information for the crop discrimination from different perspectives. The experimental results obtained with two UAV-borne high spatial resolution hyperspectral images confirm that the proposed method can solve the problems of large-scale spatial information modeling and spectral variability, improving the classification accuracy for each crop type. This method has important significance for the precise classification of crops in hyperspectral remote sensing imagery. Full article
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16 pages, 2835 KiB  
Article
Cotton Yield Estimate Using Sentinel-2 Data and an Ecosystem Model over the Southern US
by Liming He and Georgy Mostovoy
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(17), 2000; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11172000 - 24 Aug 2019
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 5506
Abstract
High-resolution data with nearly global coverage from Sentinel-2 mission open a new era for crop growth monitoring and yield estimation from remote sensing. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the potential of using Sentinel-2 biophysical data combined with an ecosystem modeling [...] Read more.
High-resolution data with nearly global coverage from Sentinel-2 mission open a new era for crop growth monitoring and yield estimation from remote sensing. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the potential of using Sentinel-2 biophysical data combined with an ecosystem modeling approach for estimation of cotton yield in the southern United States (US). The Boreal Ecosystems Productivity Simulator (BEPS) ecosystem model was used to simulate the cotton gross primary production (GPP) over three Sentinel-2 tiles located in Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas in 2017. Leaf area index (LAI) derived from Sentinel-2 measurements and hourly meteorological data from Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) reanalysis were used to drive the ecosystem model. The simulated GPP values at 20-m grid spacing were aggregated to the county level (17 counties in total) and compared to the cotton lint yield estimates at the county level which are available from National Agricultural Statistics Service in the United States Department of Agriculture. The results of the comparison show that the BEPS-simulated cotton GPP explains 85% of variation in cotton yield. Our study suggests that the integration of Sentinel-2 LAI time series into the ecosystem model results in reliable estimates of cotton yield. Full article
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25 pages, 8538 KiB  
Article
Monitoring of Nitrogen and Grain Protein Content in Winter Wheat Based on Sentinel-2A Data
by Haitao Zhao, Xiaoyu Song, Guijun Yang, Zhenhai Li, Dongyan Zhang and Haikuan Feng
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(14), 1724; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11141724 - 20 Jul 2019
Cited by 38 | Viewed by 5490
Abstract
Grain protein content (GPC) is an important indicator of wheat quality. Earlier estimation of wheat GPC based on remote sensing provided effective decision to adapt optimized strategies for grain harvest, which is of great significance for agricultural production. The objectives of this field [...] Read more.
Grain protein content (GPC) is an important indicator of wheat quality. Earlier estimation of wheat GPC based on remote sensing provided effective decision to adapt optimized strategies for grain harvest, which is of great significance for agricultural production. The objectives of this field study are: (i) To assess the ability of spectral vegetation indices (VIs) of Sentinel 2 data to detect the wheat nitrogen (N) attributes related to the grain quality of winter wheat production, and (ii) to examine the accuracy of wheat N status and GPC estimation models based on different VIs and wheat nitrogen parameters across Analytical Spectra Devices (ASD) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) hyper-spectral data-simulated sentinel data and the real Sentinel-2 data. In this study, four nitrogen parameters at the wheat anthesis stage, including plant nitrogen accumulation (PNA), plant nitrogen content (PNC), leaf nitrogen accumulation (LNA), and leaf nitrogen content (LNC), were evaluated for their relationship between spectral parameters and GPC. Then, a multivariate linear regression method was used to establish the wheat nitrogen and GPC estimation model through simulated Sentinel-2A VIs. The coefficients of determination ( R 2 ) of four nitrogen parameter models were all greater than 0.7. The minimum R 2 of the prediction model of wheat GPC constructed by four nitrogen parameters combined with VIs was 0.428 and the highest R 2 was 0.467. The normalized root mean square error (nRMSE) of the four nitrogen estimation models ranged from 26.333% to 29.530% when verified by the ground-measured data collected from the Beijing suburbs, and the corresponding nRMSE for the GPC-predicted models ranged from 17.457% to 52.518%. The accuracy of the estimated model was verified by UAV hyper-spectral data which had resized to different spatial resolution collected from the National Experimental Station for Precision Agriculture. The normalized root mean square error (nRMSE) of the four nitrogen estimation models ranged from 16.9% to 37.8%, and the corresponding nRMSE for the GPC-predicted models ranged from 12.3% to 13.2%. The relevant models were also verified by Sentinel-2A data collected in 2018 while the minimum nRMSE for GPC invert model based on PNA was 7.89% and the maximum nRMSE of the GPC model based on LNC was 12.46% in Renqiu district, Hebei province. The nRMSE for the wheat nitrogen estimation model ranged from 23.200% to 42.790% for LNC and PNC. These data demonstrate that freely available Sentinel-2 imagery can be used as an important data source for wheat nutrition and grain quality monitoring. Full article
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19 pages, 16431 KiB  
Article
Coupling Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Data with a Crop Model to Study Winter Wheat Water Demand
by Chao Zhang, Jiangui Liu, Taifeng Dong, Elizabeth Pattey, Jiali Shang, Min Tang, Huanjie Cai and Qaisar Saddique
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(14), 1684; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11141684 - 16 Jul 2019
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3449
Abstract
Accurate information of crop growth conditions and water status can improve irrigation management. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of SAFYE (simple algorithm for yield and evapotranspiration estimation) crop model for simulating winter wheat growth and estimating water demand [...] Read more.
Accurate information of crop growth conditions and water status can improve irrigation management. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of SAFYE (simple algorithm for yield and evapotranspiration estimation) crop model for simulating winter wheat growth and estimating water demand by assimilating leaf are index (LAI) derived from canopy reflectance measurements. A refined water stress function was used to account for high crop water stress. An experiment with nine irrigation scenarios corresponding to different levels of water supply was conducted over two consecutive winter wheat growing seasons (2013–2014 and 2014–2015). The calibration of four model parameters was based on the global optimization algorithms SCE-UA. Results showed that the estimated and retrieved LAI were in good agreement in most cases, with a minimum and maximum RMSE of 0.173 and 0.736, respectively. Good performance for accumulated biomass estimation was achieved under a moderate water stress condition while an underestimation occurred under a severe water stress condition. Grain yields were also well estimated for both years (R2 = 0.83; RMSE = 0.48 t∙ha−1; MRE = 8.4%). The dynamics of simulated soil moisture in the top 20 cm layer was consistent with field observations for all scenarios; whereas, a general underestimation was observed for total water storage in the 1 m layer, leading to an overestimation of the actual evapotranspiration. This research provides a scheme for estimating crop growth properties, grain yield and actual evapotranspiration by coupling crop model with remote sensing data. Full article
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22 pages, 13607 KiB  
Article
Large-Scale Crop Mapping Based on Machine Learning and Parallel Computation with Grids
by Ning Yang, Diyou Liu, Quanlong Feng, Quan Xiong, Lin Zhang, Tianwei Ren, Yuanyuan Zhao, Dehai Zhu and Jianxi Huang
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(12), 1500; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11121500 - 25 Jun 2019
Cited by 60 | Viewed by 6161
Abstract
Large-scale crop mapping provides important information in agricultural applications. However, it is a challenging task due to the inconsistent availability of remote sensing data caused by the irregular time series and limited coverage of the images, together with the low spatial resolution of [...] Read more.
Large-scale crop mapping provides important information in agricultural applications. However, it is a challenging task due to the inconsistent availability of remote sensing data caused by the irregular time series and limited coverage of the images, together with the low spatial resolution of the classification results. In this study, we proposed a new efficient method based on grids to address the inconsistent availability of the high-medium resolution images for large-scale crop classification. First, we proposed a method to block the remote sensing data into grids to solve the problem of temporal inconsistency. Then, a parallel computing technique was introduced to improve the calculation efficiency on the grid scale. Experiments were designed to evaluate the applicability of this method for different high-medium spatial resolution remote sensing images and different machine learning algorithms and to compare the results with the widely used nonparallel method. The computational experiments showed that the proposed method was successful at identifying large-scale crop distribution using common high-medium resolution remote sensing images (GF-1 WFV images and Sentinel-2) and common machine learning classifiers (the random forest algorithm and support vector machine). Finally, we mapped the croplands in Heilongjiang Province in 2015, 2016, 2017, which used a random forest classifier with the time series GF-1 WFV images spectral features, the enhanced vegetation index (EVI) and normalized difference water index (NDWI). Ultimately, the accuracy was assessed using a confusion matrix. The results showed that the classification accuracy reached 88%, 82%, and 85% in 2015, 2016, and 2017, respectively. In addition, with the help of parallel computing, the calculation speed was significantly improved by at least seven-fold. This indicates that using the grid framework to block the data for classification is feasible for crop mapping in large areas and has great application potential in the future. Full article
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18 pages, 5843 KiB  
Article
New Workflow of Plastic-Mulched Farmland Mapping using Multi-Temporal Sentinel-2 data
by Pengyu Hao, Zhongxin Chen, Huajun Tang, Dandan Li and He Li
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(11), 1353; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11111353 - 05 Jun 2019
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 3230
Abstract
Using plastic film mulch on cropland improves crop yield in water-deficient areas, but the use of plastic film on cropland leads to soil pollution. The accurate mapping of plastic-mulched land (PML) is valuable for monitoring the environmental problems caused by the use of [...] Read more.
Using plastic film mulch on cropland improves crop yield in water-deficient areas, but the use of plastic film on cropland leads to soil pollution. The accurate mapping of plastic-mulched land (PML) is valuable for monitoring the environmental problems caused by the use of plastic film. The drawback of PML mapping is that the detectable period of PML changes among the fields, which causes uncertainty when supervised classification methods are used to identify PML. In this study, a new workflow which merging PML of multiple temporal phases (MTPML) is proposed. For each temporal phase, the “possible PML” is firstly generated, these “temporal possible PML” layers are then combined to generate the “possible PML” layer. Finally, the maximum normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of the growing season is used to remove the non-cropland pixels from the “possible PML layer,” and then generate PML images. When generating “temporal possible PML layers,” three new PML indices (PMLI with near-infrared bands known as PMLI_NIR, PMLI with shortwave infrared bands known as PMLI_SWIR, and Normalized Difference PMLI known as PMLI_ND) are proposed to separate PML from bare land at plastic film cover stage; and the “temporal possible PML layer” are identified by the threshold based method. To estimate the performance of the three PML indices, two other approaches, PMLI threshold and Random Forest (RF) are used to generate “temporal possible PML layer.” Finally, PML images generated from the five MTPML approaches are compared with the image time series supervised classification (SUPML) result. Two study regions, Hengshui (HS) and Guyuan (GY), are used in this study. PML identification models are generated using training samples in HS and the models are used for PML mapping in both study regions. The results showed that MTPML workflow outperformed SUPML with 3%–5% higher classification accuracy. The three proposed PML indices had higher separability and importance score for bare land and PML discrimination. Among the five approaches used to generate the “temporal possible PML layer,” PMLI_SWIR is the recommended approach because the PMLI_SWIR threshold approach is easy to implement and the accuracy is only slightly lower than the RF approach. It is notable that no training sample was used in GY and the accuracy of the MTPML approach was higher than 85%, which indicated that the rules proposed in this study are suitable for other study regions. Full article
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22 pages, 6599 KiB  
Article
Improving Jujube Fruit Tree Yield Estimation at the Field Scale by Assimilating a Single Landsat Remotely-Sensed LAI into the WOFOST Model
by Tiecheng Bai, Nannan Zhang, Benoit Mercatoris and Youqi Chen
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(9), 1119; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11091119 - 10 May 2019
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4113
Abstract
Few studies were focused on yield estimation of perennial fruit tree crops by integrating remotely-sensed information into crop models. This study presented an attempt to assimilate a single leaf area index (LAI) near to maximum vegetative development stages derived from Landsat satellite data [...] Read more.
Few studies were focused on yield estimation of perennial fruit tree crops by integrating remotely-sensed information into crop models. This study presented an attempt to assimilate a single leaf area index (LAI) near to maximum vegetative development stages derived from Landsat satellite data into a calibrated WOFOST model to predict yields for jujube fruit trees at the field scale. Field experiments were conducted in three growth seasons to calibrate input parameters for WOFOST model, with a validated phenology error of −2, −3, and −3 days for emergence, flowering, and maturity, as well as an R2 of 0.986 and RMSE of 0.624 t ha−1 for total aboveground biomass (TAGP), R2 of 0.95 and RMSE of 0.19 m2 m−2 for LAI, respectively. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) showed better performance for LAI estimation than a Soil-adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), with a better agreement (R2 = 0.79) and prediction accuracy (RMSE = 0.17 m2 m−2). The assimilation after forcing LAI improved the yield prediction accuracy compared with unassimilated simulation and remotely sensed NDVI regression method, showing a R2 of 0.62 and RMSE of 0.74 t ha−1 for 2016, and R2 of 0.59 and RMSE of 0.87 t ha−1 for 2017. This research would provide a strategy to employ remotely sensed state variables and a crop growth model to improve field-scale yield estimates for fruit tree crops. Full article
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27 pages, 6545 KiB  
Article
Sugarcane Productivity Mapping through C-Band and L-Band SAR and Optical Satellite Imagery
by Ramses A. Molijn, Lorenzo Iannini, Jansle Vieira Rocha and Ramon F. Hanssen
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(9), 1109; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11091109 - 09 May 2019
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 9931
Abstract
Space-based remote sensing imagery can provide a valuable and cost-effective set of observations for mapping crop-productivity differences. The effectiveness of such signals is dependent on several conditions that are related to crop and sensor characteristics. In this paper, we present the dynamic behavior [...] Read more.
Space-based remote sensing imagery can provide a valuable and cost-effective set of observations for mapping crop-productivity differences. The effectiveness of such signals is dependent on several conditions that are related to crop and sensor characteristics. In this paper, we present the dynamic behavior of signals from five Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors and optical sensors with growing sugarcane, focusing on saturation effects and the influence of precipitation events. In addition, we analyzed the level of agreement within and between these spaceborne datasets over space and time. As a result, we produced a list of conditions during which the acquisition of satellite imagery is most effective for sugarcane productivity monitoring. For this, we analyzed remote sensing data from two C-band SAR (Sentinel-1 and Radarsat-2), one L-band SAR (ALOS-2), and two optical sensors (Landsat-8 and WorldView-2), in conjunction with detailed ground-reference data acquired over several sugarcane fields in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. We conclude that satellite imagery from L-band SAR and optical sensors is preferred for monitoring sugarcane biomass growth in time and space. Additionally, C-band SAR imagery offers the potential for mapping spatial variations during specific time windows and may be further exploited for its precipitation sensitivity. Full article
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22 pages, 7783 KiB  
Article
Integrating Multitemporal Sentinel-1/2 Data for Coastal Land Cover Classification Using a Multibranch Convolutional Neural Network: A Case of the Yellow River Delta
by Quanlong Feng, Jianyu Yang, Dehai Zhu, Jiantao Liu, Hao Guo, Batsaikhan Bayartungalag and Baoguo Li
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(9), 1006; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11091006 - 28 Apr 2019
Cited by 67 | Viewed by 6014
Abstract
Coastal land cover classification is a significant yet challenging task in remote sensing because of the complex and fragmented nature of coastal landscapes. However, availability of multitemporal and multisensor remote sensing data provides opportunities to improve classification accuracy. Meanwhile, rapid development of deep [...] Read more.
Coastal land cover classification is a significant yet challenging task in remote sensing because of the complex and fragmented nature of coastal landscapes. However, availability of multitemporal and multisensor remote sensing data provides opportunities to improve classification accuracy. Meanwhile, rapid development of deep learning has achieved astonishing results in computer vision tasks and has also been a popular topic in the field of remote sensing. Nevertheless, designing an effective and concise deep learning model for coastal land cover classification remains problematic. To tackle this issue, we propose a multibranch convolutional neural network (MBCNN) for the fusion of multitemporal and multisensor Sentinel data to improve coastal land cover classification accuracy. The proposed model leverages a series of deformable convolutional neural networks to extract representative features from a single-source dataset. Extracted features are aggregated through an adaptive feature fusion module to predict final land cover categories. Experimental results indicate that the proposed MBCNN shows good performance, with an overall accuracy of 93.78% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.9297. Inclusion of multitemporal data improves accuracy by an average of 6.85%, while multisensor data contributes to 3.24% of accuracy increase. Additionally, the featured fusion module in this study also increases accuracy by about 2% when compared with the feature-stacking method. Results demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively mine and fuse multitemporal and multisource Sentinel data, which improves coastal land cover classification accuracy. Full article
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21 pages, 109865 KiB  
Article
Smallholder Crop Area Mapped with a Semantic Segmentation Deep Learning Method
by Zhenrong Du, Jianyu Yang, Cong Ou and Tingting Zhang
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(7), 888; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11070888 - 11 Apr 2019
Cited by 65 | Viewed by 7636
Abstract
The growing population in China has led to an increasing importance of crop area (CA) protection. A powerful tool for acquiring accurate and up-to-date CA maps is automatic mapping using information extracted from high spatial resolution remote sensing (RS) images. RS image information [...] Read more.
The growing population in China has led to an increasing importance of crop area (CA) protection. A powerful tool for acquiring accurate and up-to-date CA maps is automatic mapping using information extracted from high spatial resolution remote sensing (RS) images. RS image information extraction includes feature classification, which is a long-standing research issue in the RS community. Emerging deep learning techniques, such as the deep semantic segmentation network technique, are effective methods to automatically discover relevant contextual features and get better image classification results. In this study, we exploited deep semantic segmentation networks to classify and extract CA from high-resolution RS images. WorldView-2 (WV-2) images with only Red-Green-Blue (RGB) bands were used to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed semantic classification framework for information extraction and the CA mapping task. Specifically, we used the deep learning framework TensorFlow to construct a platform for sampling, training, testing, and classifying to extract and map CA on the basis of DeepLabv3+. By leveraging per-pixel and random sample point accuracy evaluation methods, we conclude that the proposed approach can efficiently obtain acceptable accuracy (Overall Accuracy = 95%, Kappa = 0.90) of CA classification in the study area, and the approach performs better than other deep semantic segmentation networks (U-Net/PspNet/SegNet/DeepLabv2) and traditional machine learning methods, such as Maximum Likelihood (ML), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and RF (Random Forest). Furthermore, the proposed approach is highly scalable for the variety of crop types in a crop area. Overall, the proposed approach can train a precise and effective model that is capable of adequately describing the small, irregular fields of smallholder agriculture and handling the great level of details in RGB high spatial resolution images. Full article
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23 pages, 8477 KiB  
Article
Mapping Winter Crops in China with Multi-Source Satellite Imagery and Phenology-Based Algorithm
by Haifeng Tian, Ni Huang, Zheng Niu, Yuchu Qin, Jie Pei and Jian Wang
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(7), 820; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11070820 - 05 Apr 2019
Cited by 160 | Viewed by 6812
Abstract
Timely and accurate mapping of winter crop planting areas in China is important for food security assessment at a national level. Time-series of vegetation indices, such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), are widely used for crop mapping, as they can characterize [...] Read more.
Timely and accurate mapping of winter crop planting areas in China is important for food security assessment at a national level. Time-series of vegetation indices, such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), are widely used for crop mapping, as they can characterize the growth cycle of crops. However, with the moderate spatial resolution optical imagery acquired by Landsat and Sentinel-2, it is difficult to obtain complete time-series curves for vegetation indices due to the influence of the revisit cycle of the satellite and weather conditions. Therefore, in this study, we propose a method for compositing the multi-temporal NDVI, in order to map winter crop planting areas with the Landsat-7 and -8 and Sentinel-2 optical images. The algorithm composites the multi-temporal NDVI into three key values, according to two time-windows—a period of low NDVI values and a period of high NDVI values—for the winter crops. First, we identify the two time-windows, according to the time-series of the NDVI obtained from daily Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer observations. Second, the 30 m spatial resolution multi-temporal NDVI curve, derived from the Landsat-7 and -8 and Sentinel-2 optical images, is composited by selecting the maximal value in the high NDVI value period, and the minimal and median values in the low NDVI value period, using an algorithm of the Google Earth Engine. Third, a decision tree classification method is utilized to perform the winter crop classification at a pixel level. The results indicate that this method is effective for the large-scale mapping of winter crops. In the study area, the area of winter crops in 2018 was determined to be 207,641 km2, with an overall accuracy of 96.22% and a kappa coefficient of 0.93. The method proposed in this paper is expected to contribute to the rapid and accurate mapping of winter crops in large-scale applications and analyses. Full article
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21 pages, 8308 KiB  
Article
A New CNN-Bayesian Model for Extracting Improved Winter Wheat Spatial Distribution from GF-2 imagery
by Chengming Zhang, Yingjuan Han, Feng Li, Shuai Gao, Dejuan Song, Hui Zhao, Keqi Fan and Ya’nan Zhang
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(6), 619; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11060619 - 14 Mar 2019
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 5346
Abstract
When the spatial distribution of winter wheat is extracted from high-resolution remote sensing imagery using convolutional neural networks (CNN), field edge results are usually rough, resulting in lowered overall accuracy. This study proposed a new per-pixel classification model using CNN and Bayesian models [...] Read more.
When the spatial distribution of winter wheat is extracted from high-resolution remote sensing imagery using convolutional neural networks (CNN), field edge results are usually rough, resulting in lowered overall accuracy. This study proposed a new per-pixel classification model using CNN and Bayesian models (CNN-Bayesian model) for improved extraction accuracy. In this model, a feature extractor generates a feature vector for each pixel, an encoder transforms the feature vector of each pixel into a category-code vector, and a two-level classifier uses the difference between elements of category-probability vectors as the confidence value to perform per-pixel classifications. The first level is used to determine the category of a pixel with high confidence, and the second level is an improved Bayesian model used to determine the category of low-confidence pixels. The CNN-Bayesian model was trained and tested on Gaofen 2 satellite images. Compared to existing models, our approach produced an improvement in overall accuracy, the overall accuracy of SegNet, DeepLab, VGG-Ex, and CNN-Bayesian was 0.791, 0.852, 0.892, and 0.946, respectively. Thus, this approach can produce superior results when winter wheat spatial distribution is extracted from satellite imagery. Full article
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19 pages, 5307 KiB  
Article
Retrieving Corn Canopy Leaf Area Index from Multitemporal Landsat Imagery and Terrestrial LiDAR Data
by Wei Su, Jianxi Huang, Desheng Liu and Mingzheng Zhang
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(5), 572; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11050572 - 08 Mar 2019
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 4801
Abstract
Leaf angle is a critical structural parameter for retrieving canopy leaf area index (LAI) using the PROSAIL model. However, the traditional method using default leaf angle distribution in the PROSAIL model does not capture the phenological dynamics of canopy growth. This study presents [...] Read more.
Leaf angle is a critical structural parameter for retrieving canopy leaf area index (LAI) using the PROSAIL model. However, the traditional method using default leaf angle distribution in the PROSAIL model does not capture the phenological dynamics of canopy growth. This study presents a LAI retrieval method for corn canopies using PROSAIL model with leaf angle distribution functions referred from terrestrial laser scanning points at four phenological stages during the growing season. Specifically, four inferred maximum-probability leaf angles were used in the Campbell ellipsoid leaf angle distribution function of PROSAIL. A Lookup table (LUT) is generated by running the PROSAIL model with inferred leaf angles, and the cost function is minimized to retrieve LAI. The results show that the leaf angle distribution functions are different for the corn plants at different phenological growing stages, and the incorporation of derived specific corn leaf angle distribution functions distribute the improvement of LAI retrieval using the PROSAIL model. This validation is done using in-situ LAI measurements and MODIS LAI in Baoding City, Hebei Province, China, and compared with the LAI retrieved using default leaf angle distribution function at the same time. The root-mean-square error (RMSE) between the retrieved LAI on 4 September 2014, using the modified PROSAIL model and the in-situ measured LAI was 0.31 m2/m2, with a strong and significant correlation (R2 = 0.82, residual range = 0 to 0.6 m2/m2, p < 0.001). Comparatively, the accuracy of LAI retrieved results using default leaf angle distribution is lower, the RMSE of which is 0.56 with R2 = 0.76 and residual range = 0 to 1.0 m2/m2, p < 0.001. This validation reveals that the introduction of inferred leaf angle distributions from TLS data points can improve the LAI retrieval accuracy using the PROSAIL model. Moreover, the comparations of LAI retrieval results on 10 July, 26 July, 19 August and 4 September with default and inferred corn leaf angle distribution functions are all compared with MODIS LAI products in the whole study area. This validation reveals that improvement exists in a wide spatial range and temporal range. All the comparisons demonstrate the potential of the modified PROSAIL model for retrieving corn canopy LAI from Landsat imagery by inferring leaf orientation from terrestrial laser scanning data. Full article
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13 pages, 14199 KiB  
Article
Assimilating Remote Sensing Phenological Information into the WOFOST Model for Rice Growth Simulation
by Gaoxiang Zhou, Xiangnan Liu and Ming Liu
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(3), 268; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11030268 - 30 Jan 2019
Cited by 32 | Viewed by 4920
Abstract
Precise simulation of crop growth is crucial to yield estimation, agricultural field management, and climate change. Although assimilation of crop model and remote sensing data has been applied in crop growth simulation, few studies have considered optimizing the crop model with respect to [...] Read more.
Precise simulation of crop growth is crucial to yield estimation, agricultural field management, and climate change. Although assimilation of crop model and remote sensing data has been applied in crop growth simulation, few studies have considered optimizing the crop model with respect to phenology. In this study, we assimilated phenological information obtained from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) time series data into the World Food Study (WOFOST) model to improve the accuracy of rice growth simulation at the regional scale. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm was implemented to optimize the initial phenology development stage (IDVS) and transplanting date (TD) in the WOFOST model by minimizing the difference between simulated and observed phenology, including heading and maturity date. Assimilating phenology improved the accuracy of the rice growth simulation, with correlation coefficients (R) equal to 0.793, 0822, and 0.813 at three fieldwork dates. The performance of the proposed strategy is comparable with that of the enhanced vegetation index (EVI) time series assimilation strategy, with less computation time. Additionally, the result confirms that the proposed strategy could be applied with different spatial resolution images and the difference of simulated LAImean is less than 0.35 in three experimental areas. This study offers a novel assimilation strategy with regard to the phenology development process, which is efficient and scalable for crop growth simulation. Full article
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19 pages, 12435 KiB  
Article
Farmland Extraction from High Spatial Resolution Remote Sensing Images Based on Stratified Scale Pre-Estimation
by Lu Xu, Dongping Ming, Wen Zhou, Hanqing Bao, Yangyang Chen and Xiao Ling
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 108; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs11020108 - 09 Jan 2019
Cited by 46 | Viewed by 4381
Abstract
Extracting farmland from high spatial resolution remote sensing images is a basic task for agricultural information management. According to Tobler’s first law of geography, closer objects have a stronger relation. Meanwhile, due to the scale effect, there are differences on both spatial and [...] Read more.
Extracting farmland from high spatial resolution remote sensing images is a basic task for agricultural information management. According to Tobler’s first law of geography, closer objects have a stronger relation. Meanwhile, due to the scale effect, there are differences on both spatial and attribute scales among different kinds of objects. Thus, it is not appropriate to segment images with unique or fixed parameters for different kinds of objects. In view of this, this paper presents a stratified object-based farmland extraction method, which includes two key processes: one is image region division on a rough scale and the other is scale parameter pre-estimation within local regions. Firstly, the image in RGB color space is converted into HSV color space, and then the texture features of the hue layer are calculated using the grey level co-occurrence matrix method. Thus, the whole image can be divided into different regions based on the texture features, such as the mean and homogeneity. Secondly, within local regions, the optimal spatial scale segmentation parameter was pre-estimated by average local variance and its first-order and second-order rate of change. The optimal attribute scale segmentation parameter can be estimated based on the histogram of local variance. Through stratified regionalization and local segmentation parameters estimation, fine farmland segmentation can be achieved. GF-2 and Quickbird images were used in this paper, and mean-shift and multi-resolution segmentation algorithms were applied as examples to verify the validity of the proposed method. The experimental results have shown that the stratified processing method can release under-segmentation and over-segmentation phenomena to a certain extent, which ultimately benefits the accurate farmland information extraction. Full article
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18 pages, 4056 KiB  
Article
Optimal Hyperspectral Characteristics Determination for Winter Wheat Yield Prediction
by Yao Zhang, Qiming Qin, Huazhong Ren, Yuanheng Sun, Minzan Li, Tianyuan Zhang and Shilong Ren
Remote Sens. 2018, 10(12), 2015; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs10122015 - 12 Dec 2018
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 3898
Abstract
Crop growth in different periods influences the final yield. This study started from the agronomic mechanism of yield formation and aimed to extract useful spectral characteristics in different phenological phases, which could directly describe the final yield and dynamic contributions of different phases [...] Read more.
Crop growth in different periods influences the final yield. This study started from the agronomic mechanism of yield formation and aimed to extract useful spectral characteristics in different phenological phases, which could directly describe the final yield and dynamic contributions of different phases to the yield formation. Hyperspectral information of the winter wheat canopy was acquired during three important phases (jointing stage, heading stage, and grain-filling stage). An enhanced 2D correlation spectral analysis method modified by mutual information was proposed to identify the sensitive wavebands. The selected wavebands performed well with good mechanism interpretation and close correlation with important crop growth parameters and main physiological activities related to yield formation. The quantitative contribution proportions of plant growth in three phases to the final yield were estimated by determining the coefficients of partial least square models based on full spectral information. They were then used as single-phase weight factors to merge the selected wavebands. The support vector machine model based on the weighted spectral dataset performed well in yield prediction with satisfactory accuracy and robustness. This result would provide rapid and accurate guidance for agricultural production and would be valuable for the processing of hyperspectral remote sensing data. Full article
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