Abstract
Winter wheat is one of the major cereal crops in the world. Monitoring and mapping its spatial distribution has significant implications for agriculture management, water resources utilization, and food security. Generally, winter wheat has distinguished phenological stages during the growing season, which form a unique EVI (Enhanced Vegetation Index) time series curve and differ considerably from other crop types and natural vegetation. Since early 2000, the MODIS EVI product has become the primary dataset for satellite-based crop monitoring at large scales due to its high temporal resolution, huge observation scope, and timely availability. However, the intraclass variability of winter wheat caused by field conditions and agricultural practices might lower the mapping accuracy, which has received little attention in previous studies. Here, we present a winter wheat mapping approach that integrates the variables derived from the MODIS EVI time series taking into account intraclass variability. We applied this approach to two winter wheat concentration areas, the state of Kansas in the U.S. and the North China Plain region (NCP). The results were evaluated against crop-specific maps or statistical data at the state/regional level, county level, and site level. Compared with statistical data, the accuracies in Kansas and the NCP were 95.1% and 92.9% at the state/regional level with R2 (Coefficient of Determination) values of 0.96 and 0.71 at the county level, respectively. Overall accuracies in confusion matrix were evaluated by validation samples in both Kansas (90.3%) and the NCP (85.0%) at the site level. Comparisons with methods without considering intraclass variability demonstrated that winter wheat mapping accuracies were improved by 17% in Kansas and 15% in the NCP using the improved approach. Further analysis indicated that our approach performed better in areas with lower landscape fragmentation, which may partly explain the relatively higher accuracy of winter wheat mapping in Kansas. This study provides a new perspective for generating multiple subclasses as training inputs to decrease the intraclass differences for crop type detection based on the MODIS EVI time series. This approach provides a flexible framework with few variables and fewer training samples that could facilitate its application to multiple-crop-type mapping at large scales.
Highlights
Wheat is the world’s third largest food crop in terms of production [1] and is the most widely grown crop globally [2]
The objectives of this study are to 1) present an improved approach considering intraclass variability for winter wheat mapping based on the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) EVI time series images; 2) apply the new aopnprthoaecMh OtoDtwISoEaVreIatsimofeisnetreireesstd, aKtaanisnatswaondsttuhdeyNaCrePa;s3;)Kaannaslyazseatnhde tehffeecNtsorotfhlaCnhdisncaapPelasitnrurcetguiroen o(nNCrePm).oKteansesnassihnags-blaasregde acrreoaps mofacpopninsegcuacticvuerawchyeuastifingeldtws owlhainchdsgceanpeeramlleytrriacns,gie.ef.r,oFmrag30mteon1ta5t0iohna Iannddexh(aFsRaGc)oamnpdrPeherecnesnivtaegaenodf trheeliaLbalnedcsocuanptey(-PleLvAelNaDrc)h; aivnedo4f)cirdoepntsitfaytitshteicusn[4c]e.rtTahinetiNesCaPnadcfcuotuunrtes nfeoerdaspipnrorexmimoateteslyentswinog-t-hbiarsdesdocfrCophianrae’as mtoataplpwinhge.at area and production [34], representing the most important wheat-producing area in China
We presented an improved approach for winter wheat mapping based on the MODIS EVI time series, in which intraclass variability effects were considered
Summary
Wheat is the world’s third largest food crop in terms of production [1] and is the most widely grown crop globally [2]. The development of the remote sensing technology makes it possible to monitor crop areas at fine spectral, temporal, and spatial scales realistically [11,12]. Data with high temporal resolution provides time-series images with daily signatures and has been successfully used for crop area monitoring [13,14,15]. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the NASA Earth Observing System Terra and Aqua satellite platforms offers unprecedented capabilities for large-area crop mapping by providing global coverage, half-day revisit capacities, and medium spatial resolution [16,17]. MODIS Vegetation Index (VI) time-series has been proven to be a powerful tool for crop type characterization and has been successfully used for crop mapping across a wide range of scales and geographic locations [18,19]. Some studies have used the MODIS VI data for mapping and monitoring winter wheat across different scales [15,20]
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