Mapping seasonal rice cropland extent and area in the high cropping intensity environment of Bangladesh using MODIS 500 m data for the year 2010

Rice is the most consumed staple food in the world and a key crop for food security. Much of the world’s rice is produced and consumed in Asia where cropping intensity is often greater than 100% (more than one crop per year), yet this intensity is not sufficiently represented in many land use products. Agricultural practices and investments vary by season due to the different challenges faced, such as drought, salinity, or flooding, and the different requirements such as varietal choice, water source, inputs, and crop establishment methods. Thus, spatial and temporal information on the seasonal extent of rice is an important input to decision making related to increased agricultural productivity and the sustainable use of limited natural resources. The goal of this study was to demonstrate that hyper temporal moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) data can be used to map the spatial distribution of the seasonal rice crop extent and area. The study was conducted in Bangladesh where rice can be cropped once, twice, or three times a year.MODIS normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) maximum value composite (MVC) data at 500 m resolution along with seasonal field-plot information from year 2010 were used to map rice crop extent and area for three seasons, boro (December/January–April), aus (April/May–June/July), and aman (July/August–November/December), in Bangladesh. A subset of the field-plot information was used to assess the pixel-level accuracy of the MODIS-derived rice area. Seasonal district-level rice area statistics were used to assess the accuracy of the rice area estimates. When compared to field-plot data, the maps of rice versus non-rice exceeded 90% accuracy in all three seasons and the accuracy of the five rice classes varied from 78% to 90% across the three seasons. On average, the MODIS-derived rice area estimates were 6% higher than the sub-national statistics during boro, 7% higher during aus, and 3% higher during the aman season. The MODIS-derived sub-national areas explained (R² values) 96%, 93%, and 96% of the variability at the district level for boro, aus, and aman seasons, respectively.The results demonstrated that the methods we applied for analysing and interpreting moderate spatial and high temporal resolution imagery can accurately capture the seasonal variability in rice crop extent and area. We discuss the robustness of the approach and highlight issues that must be addressed before similar methods are used across other areas of Asia where a mix of rainfed, irrigated, or supplemental irrigation permits single, double, and triple cropping in a single calendar year.     

Identification of Aman Rice Crop in Bangladesh Using Temporal C-Band SAR – A Feasibility Study

In-season rice area estimation using C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from RADARSAT-1 is being done in India for more than a decade. Decision rule based models in backscatter domain have been calibrated and validated using extensive field data and a long term backscatter signature bank of rice fields has been developed. Since the rice crop growing environment in India is a diverse one in the world having all the rice cultural types, the rice backscatter is quite exhaustive. This paper highlights the results of classification of rice lands in Bangladesh using the signature bank of India. The results showed that the Aman rice crop of Bangladesh has a typical temporal backscatter of shallow and intermediate rice fields of that of West Bengal state. The mean backscatter of the intermediate/deep water fields in southern Bangladesh was ?19?dB, while that of shallow cultural types mostly in northern Bangladesh was ?17?dB. The signature of the rice crop in Southern Bangladesh matched well with that of Gangetic West Bengal, particularly that of the 24 Parganas, Howrah and Hughli districts. The signature of rice crop in the Sub-Himalayan West Bengal particularly that of Dinajpur and Maldah districts matched well with that of the northern area of Bangladesh. State level rice area estimated using the selected models was found with in 5% deviation from that of the reported acreage.     

Agricultural Area Diversification and Crop Water Demand Analysis: A Remote Sensing and GIS Approach

Large scale adoption of input intensive rice–wheat cropping system in the centrally located Jalandhar district of Indian Punjab has led to over-exploitation of ground water resources, intensive use of chemical fertilizers and deterioration of soil health. To overcome these shortfalls, in the present study, agricultural area diversification plan has been generated from agricultural area and crop rotation maps derived from remote sensing data (IRS P6-AWiFS and RADARSAT ScanSAR) along with few agro-physical parameters in GIS environment. Cropping system indices (area diversity, multiple cropping and cultivated land utilization) were also worked out from remote sensing data .Analysis of remote sensing data (2004–05) revealed that rice and wheat individually remained the dominant crops, occupy 57.8% and 64.9% of total agricultural area (TAA), respectively. Therefore, in the diversified plan, it is suggested that at least 39% of the current 40% TAA under rice–wheat rotation should be replaced by other low water requiring, high value and soil enriching crops, particularly in coarse textured alluvial plain having good quality ground water zones with low annual rainfall(<700 mm). This will reduce water requirement to the tune of 15,660 cm depth while stabilizing the production and profitability by crop area diversification without further degradation of natural resources.     

Assessment of Potato Phenological Characteristics Using MODIS-Derived NDVI and LAI Information

Remote sensing techniques are capable of identifying a particular crop as well as monitoring its growing stages, crop vigor, and biomass. Due to the increasing demand for food staples, potato cultivation in Bangladesh has increased substantially over the last decade. A study was carried out in the Munshiganj area, the main potato-producing district in Bangladesh, to assess the growth of potatoes by modeling its important life metrics. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Leaf Area Index (LAI) products were extracted from MODIS Surface Reflectance Eight-Day L3 Global 500 m data from November 25, 2005 to March 6, 2006. NDVI and LAI were extracted for 50 selected fields in the study area and used to construct potato phenological curves. Twenty-two life metrics were derived for potato from the phenological curves. The first 12 metrics are the basic life metrics of potato and the others are supplementary. Results showed a significant amplitude and distinct response period of these vegetation indices. Based on the phenological curves, the spatial distribution of potato growth was estimated for the study area for both NDVI and LAI. The effect of temperature on crop phenology was examined during the potato growing season. It was found that significant growth occurred when the temperature was relatively low. This study demonstrates that remote sensing data can be effectively used to study potato growth in Bangladesh.     

Crop classification and acreage estimation in North Korea using phenology features

In North Korea, reliable and timely information on crop acreage and spatial distribution is hard to obtain. In this study, we developed a fast and robust method to estimate crop acreage in North Korea using time-series normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. We proposed a method to identify crop type based on NDVI phenology features using data collected in other areas with similar agri-environmental conditions to mitigate the shortage of ground truth data. Eventually the classification map (MODIScrop) was assessed using the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistical data and high-resolution crop classification maps derived from one Landsat scene (LScrop). The Pareto boundary method was used to assess the accuracy and crop distribution of the MODIScrop maps. Results showed that acreage derived from the MODIScrop maps was generally consistent with that reported in the FAO data (a relative error <4.1% for rice and <6.1% for maize, and <9.0% for soybean except for in 2004, 2008, and 2009) and the maps derived from the LScrop (a relative error about 5% in 2013, and 7% in 2008 and 2014). The classification accuracy reached 74.4%, 69.8%, and 73.1% of the areas covered by the Landsat images in 2008, 2013, and 2014, respectively. This indicates that features derived from NDVI profiles were able to characterize major crops, and the approaches developed in this study are feasible for crop mapping and acreage estimation in regions with limited ground truth data.     

MODIS植被指数的美国玉米单产遥感估测

针对中国开展的国外农作物产量遥感估测大多依靠中低分辨率耕地信息、省级(州级)或国家级作物产量统计数据的现状,本文以美国玉米为例,探讨利用多年中高分辨率作物分布信息、时序遥感植被指数和县级作物产量统计数据开展国外重点地区作物单产遥感估测技术研究,以期进一步提高中国对国外农作物产量监测精度和精细化水平。首先,利用美国农业部国家农业统计局(NASS/USDA)生产的作物分布数据(CDL)获得多个年份玉米空间分布图,并对相应年份250 m分辨率16天合成的MODIS-NDVI时序数据进行掩膜处理,统计获得每年各县域内玉米主要生育期NDVI均值;其次,以各州为估产区,以多年县级玉米统计单产和县域内玉米主要生育期NDVI均值为基础,建立各州玉米主要生育期NDVI与玉米单产间关系模型;然后,通过主要生育期玉米单产和玉米植被指数间拟合程度,筛选确定各州玉米最佳估产期和最佳估产模型。最终,利用最佳估产模型实现美国各州玉米单产估测和全国玉米单产推算。其中,建模数据覆盖时间为2007年—2010年,验证数据为2011年。结果表明,应用最佳估产模型的2011年美国各州玉米单产估测相对误差在-4.16%—4.92%,均方根误差在148.75—820.93 kg/ha,各州估测结果计算获得全国玉米单产的相对误差仅为2.12%,均方根误差为285.57 kg/ha。可见,本研究的作物单产遥感估测技术方法具有一定可行性,可准确估测全球重点地区作物单产信息。     

Assessing land cover change resulting from large surface mining development

A remote sensing based land cover change assessment methodology is presented and applied to a case study of the Oil Sands Mining Development in Athabasca, Alta., Canada. The primary impact was assessed using an information extraction method applied to two LANDSAT scenes. The analysis based on derived land cover maps shows a decrease of natural vegetation in the study area (715,094 ha) for 2001 approximately −8.64% relative to 1992. Secondary assessment based on a key resources indicator (KRI), calculated using normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI measurements acquired by NOAA–AVHRR satellites), air temperature and global radiation was performed for a time period from 1990 to 2002. KRI trend analysis indicates a slightly decreasing trend in vegetation greenness in close proximity to the mining development. A good agreement between the time series of inter-annual variations in NDVI and air temperature is observed increasing the confidence of NDVI as an indicator for assessing vegetation productivity and its sensitivity to changes in local conditions.     

Satellite-based investigation of flood-affected rice cultivation areas in Chao Phraya River Delta,Thailand

The occurrence of catastrophic floods in Thailand in 2011 caused significant damage to rice agriculture. This study investigated flood-affected rice cultivation areas in the Chao Phraya River Delta (CRD) rice bowl, Thailand using time-series moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. The data were processed for 2008 (normal flood year) and 2011, comprising four main steps: (1) data pre-processing to construct time-series MODIS vegetation indices (VIs), to filter noise from the time-series VIs by the empirical mode decomposition (EMD), and to mask out non-agricultural areas in respect to water-related cropping areas; (2) flood-affected area classification using the unsupervised linear mixture model (ULMM); (3) rice crop classification using the support vector machines (SVM); and (4) accuracy assessment of flood and rice crop mapping results. The comparisons between the flood mapping results and the ground reference data indicated an overall accuracy of 97.9% and Kappa coefficient of 0.62 achieved for 2008, and 95.7% and 0.77 for 2011, respectively. These results were reaffirmed by close agreement (R² > 0.8) between comparisons of the two datasets at the provincial level. The crop mapping results compared with the ground reference data revealed that the overall accuracies and Kappa coefficients obtained for 2008 were 88.5% and 0.82, and for 2011 were 84.1% and 0.76, respectively. A strong correlation was also found between MODIS-derived rice area and rice area statistics at the provincial level (R² > 0.7). Rice crop maps overlaid on the flood-affected area maps showed that approximately 16.8% of the rice cultivation area was affected by floods in 2011 compared to 4.9% in 2008. A majority of the flood-expanded area was observed for the double-cropped rice (10.5%), probably due to flood-induced effects to the autumn–summer and rainy season crops. Information achieved from this study could be useful for agricultural planners to mitigate possible impacts of floods on rice production.     

利用Landsat TM和IRS P6 LISS III卫星影像及GIS对耕地和耕种模式的时空动态分析(英文)

The study of the spatial patterns and temporal changes of cropland is important to understand the underlying factors and the functional effects of the agricultural landscape. On the other hand, crop dynamics mapping is essential to know the overall agro-spatial diversity of the area. Therefore, this paper addressed a spatio-temporal analysis of cropland and cropping pattern change in the Bogra district of Bangladesh over the last 16 years (between 1988/89 and 2004/05). In this paper, crop mapping from multi-temporal and multi-sensor satellite images was described. Landsat TM and IRS P6 LISS III satellite images were used with GIS for spatial dynamics of cropland and cropping pattern change analysis. First, seasonal cropland maps were derived from object-based classification of satellite images, then two-date classified image differencing with GIS overlay technique and decision rules were applied. Cropping pattern change was analyzed in a spatial and quantitative way for the 16 years and for this, Integrated Land and Water Information System (ILWIS) and Land Change Modular (LCM) of IDRISI Andes were used. The results showed that in the area, mono crop cultivation was found in summer, but in winter, areas under different crop cultivation had changed dramatically. Change analysis showed that the changes mainly occurred in the north northwest and southwest of the areas, and during the time the highest change area was found under the rice-potato pattern.      

Impact Assessment of Watershed Programme Through Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System

Impact assessment of watershed development activity assumes greater importance in present day agriculture. Considering the ability of remote sensing technology in watershed monitoring and impact assessment, a study was carried out to investigate the Impact Assessment of Karnataka Watershed Development Project (DANIDA) in Koralahallihalla Sub watershed in Sindagi taluk of Bijapur district in Northern Karnataka using satellite data of two periods i.e., IRS 1?C, LISS-III data of 30 December, 1997 (pre-treatment) and IRS P6, LISS-III data of 17 December, 2004 (post-treatment). The land use/land cover map was derived from the supervised classification. The results revealed that there has been no major shift in cropping patterns over a period of 7?years (1997?C2004). However, rabi cropped area has decreased drastically (187?ha), which might be due to the continuous droughts that occurred during the implementation period. On the other hand, kharif and double cropped area have increased marginally (103?ha and 96?ha, respectively). Increase in double cropped area showed that there was increase in irrigated land, which were earlier being used as rainfed and wastelands turned in to cultivated lands as seen in scrub lands and rabi cropped areas of the sub watershed. Wastelands in the sub-watershed has decreased marginally (36?ha). The vegetation vigour of the sub-watershed has been derived from the NDVI maps of both the periods. These NDVI maps indicate that there was a significant change in biomass status of the sub watershed. The vegetation vigour of the area was classified into three classes using NDVI. Substantial increase in the area under high and low biomass levels was observed (319?ha and 77?ha, respectively). The benefit-cost analysis indicates that the use of remote sensing technology was 2 times cheaper than the conventional methods. Thus, the repetitive coverage of the satellite data provides an excellent opportunity to monitor the land resources and evaluate the land cover changes through comparison of images for the watershed at different periods.     

Application of remote sensing technology for Impact Assessment of Watershed Development Programme

The current study was taken up to investigate the utility of remote sensing and GIS tools for evaluation of Integrated Wasteland Development Programme (IWDP) implemented during 1997–2001 in Katangidda Nala watershed, Chincholi taluk, Gulbarga district, Karnataka. The study was carried out using IRS 1C, LISS III data of December 11, 1997 (pre-treatment) and November 15, 2002 (post-treatment) covering the watershed to assess the changes in land use / land cover and biomass that have changed over a period of five years (1997–2002). The images were classified into different land use/land cover categories using supervised classification by maximum likelihood algorithm. They were also classified into different biomass levels using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) approach. The results indicated that the area under agriculture crops and forest land were increased by 671 ha (5.7%) and 1,414 ha (11.94%) respectively. This is due to the fact that parts of wastelands and fallow lands were brought into cultivation. This increase in the area may be attributed to better utilization of surface and ground waters, adoption of soil and water conservation practices and changes in cropping pattern. The area under waste lands and fallow lands decreased by 1,667 ha (14.07%) and 467 ha (3.94%), respectively. The vegetation vigour of the area was classified into three classes using NDVI. Substantial increase in the area under high and low biomass levels was observed (502 ha and 19 ha respectively). The benefit-cost analysis indicates that the use of remote sensing and GIS was 2.2 times cheaper than the conventional methods. Thus, the repetitive coverage of the satellite data provides an excellent opportunity to monitor the land resources and evaluate the land cover changes through comparison of images for the watershed at different periods.     

Use of GIS and remote sensing for crop diversification — a case study for Punjab state

In this study, an attempt has been made to suggest crop diversification based on soil and weather requirements of different crops. State level spatial databases of various agro-physical parameters such as rainfall, soil texture, physiography and problem soil along with the agricultural area derived from remote sensing data were integrated using GIS. A raster based modelling approach was followed to arrive at suitable zones for practicing different cropping systems. The results showed that the south-western Punjab is suitable for low water requiring crops such as desi cotton, pearl millet, gram etc., where as north-eastern Punjab with high rainfall and excess drainage should practice maize based cropping system. Rice can be substituted by maize and other crops in Central Punjab, where water table is going down fast. Using this approach the area of rice based cropping system can be reduced from present 24.7 lakh ha to 19.6 lakh ha, thereby reducing the degradation of valuable land and water resources.     

洪涝灾害灾情分析和评估的遥感方法研究

探讨了基于遥感和地理信息系统手段进行洪涝灾害灾情分析和损失估计的途径,研究了利用灾后一定时期内的遥感影像再现淹没状况的方法。     

Interpretation of crop growth patterns by means of NDVI‐time series in Zambia

A method to correlate crop production in Zambia to the yearly evolution of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is proposed. The method consists of the analysis of remote sensing data together with meteorological data and simulated crop production to obtain indicators of crop production. The accuracy of these indicators is assessed with statistical data.

The main objective was to assess whether the NDVI‐time series extracted from NOAA‐AVHRR‐images , having a pixel resolution of 73 km may give reliable information on crop production in Zambia where agricultural areas cover just 1% of the land area.

The mean NDVI‐value of several pixels, e.g. for one province or other administrative units, relates to the dominant type of vegetation in the area under consideration.

It is shown that the 7.3 km NDVI‐data give reliable indications on crop production in Zambia, when small areas (200–450 km² large ) are considered where agricultural land use is intensive. This implies that preliminary analysis is required to localize the agricultural areas. This has been done by means of high resolution satellite images i.e. LANDSAT‐MultiSpectral Scanner.

Consequently, the NDVI‐time series of the ‘agricultural ‘ pixels are used to calculate crop growth indicators which can be applied to assess the crop production.     

Multi-source Classification Using Artificial Neural Network in a Rugged Terrain

Abstract

This study advocates the use of GIS and remote sensing technologies to establish urban evolution maps and assess the impact of urbanization on agricultural areas over the last three decades. The target area is the city of Béni‐Mellal, located in central Morocco. The methodology adopted makes use of panchromatic SPOT images to survey the urban areas during the 1980s and 1990s. Available topographic maps provided the information for the 1970s. Maps and statistics of land use and urban growth for Béni Mellal were established after manually classifying images on a per-polygon basis and digitizing topographic maps using GIS capabilities. The results show an increase in dense urban area by 980.7 ha from the 1970s to the 1990s. This increase occurred at the expense of forests (24.7 ha), plantations (752.3 ha), rangeland (113.4 ha), non‐irrigated land (69.7 ha), and irrigated land (20.6 ha). During this period, scattered urban areas, predominantly suburbs, increased by 755.9 ha to the detriment of forests (14.9 ha), plantations (109.8 ha), rangeland (138.9 ha), non‐irrigated land(400.5 ha), and irrigated land (91.9 ha). These cartographic and statistic results are efficient decision‐making tools for protecting agricultural land and planning urban and suburban areas.     

Wheat crop production estimation using satellite data

This paper reports acreage, yield and production forecasting of wheat crop using remote sensing and agrometeorological data for the 1998–99 rabi season. Wheat crop identification and discrimination using Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) ID LISS III satellite data was carried out by supervised maximum likelihood classification. Three types of wheat crop viz. wheat-1 (high vigour-normal sown), wheat-2 (moderate vigour-late sown) and wheat-3 (low vigour-very late sown) have been identified and discriminated from each other. Before final classification of satellite data spectral separability between classes were evaluated. For yield prediction of wheat crop spectral vegetation indices (RVI and NDVI), agrometeorological parameters (ET_max and TD) and historical crop yield (actual yield) trend analysis based linear and multiple linear regression models were developed. The estimated wheat crop area was 75928.0 ha. for the year 1998–99, which sowed ?2.59% underestimation with land record commissioners estimates. The yield prediction through vegetation index based and vegetation index with agrometeorological indices based models were 1753 kg/ha and 1754 kg/ha, respectively and have shown relative deviation of 0.17% and 0.22%, the production estimates from above models when compared with observed production show relative deviation of ?2.4% and ?2.3% underestimations, respectively.     

统计数据总量约束下全局优化阈值的冬小麦分布制图

大范围、长时间和高精度农作物空间分布基础农业科学数据的准确获取对资源、环境、生态、气候变化和国家粮食安全等问题研究具有重要现实意义和科学意义。本文针对传统阈值法农作物识别过程中阈值设置存在灵巧性差和自动化程度低等弱点,以中国粮食主产区黄淮海平原内河北省衡水市景县为典型实验区,首次将全局优化算法应用于阈值模型中阈值优化选取,开展了利用全局优化算法改进基于阈值检测的农作物分布制图方法创新研究。以冬小麦为研究对象,国产高分一号(GF-1)为主要遥感数据源,在作物面积统计数据为总量控制参考标准和全局参数优化的复合型混合演化算法SCE-UA (Shuffled Complex Evolution-University of Arizona)支持下,提出利用时序NDVI数据开展阈值模型阈值参数自动优化的冬小麦空间分布制图方法。最终,获得实验区冬小麦阈值模型最优参数,并利用优化后的阈值参数对冬小麦空间分布进行提取。通过地面验证表明,利用本研究所提方法获取的冬小麦识别结果分类精度均达到较高水平。其中冬小麦识别结果总量精度达到了99.99%,证明本研究所提阈值模型参数优化方法冬小麦提取分类结果总量控制效果良好;同时,与传统的阈值法、最大似然和支持向量机等分类方法相比,本研究所提阈值模型参数优化法区域冬小麦作物分类总体精度和Kappa系数分别都有所提高,其中,总体精度分别提高4.55%、2.43%和0.15%,Kappa系数分别提高0.12、0.06和0.01,这体现出SCE-UA全局优化算法对提高阈值模型冬小麦空间分布识别精度具有一定优势。以上研究结果证明了利用本研究所提基于作物面积统计数据总量控制以及SCE-UA全局优化算法支持下阈值模型参数优化作物分布制图方法的有效性和可行性,可获得高精度冬小麦作物空间分布制图结果,这对提高中国冬小麦空间分布制图精度和自动化水平具有一定意义,也可为农作物面积农业统计数据降尺度恢复重建和大范围区域作物空间分布制图研究提供一定技术参考。     

Crop discrimination in Northern China with double cropping systems using Fourier analysis of time-series MODIS data

Crop identification is the basis of crop monitoring using remote sensing. Remote sensing the extent and distribution of individual crop types has proven useful to a wide range of users, including policy-makers, farmers, and scientists. Northern China is not merely the political, economic, and cultural centre of China, but also an important base for grain production. Its main grains are wheat, maize, and cotton. By employing the Fourier analysis method, we studied crop planting patterns in the Northern China plain. Then, using time-series EOS-MODIS NDVI data, we extracted the key parameters to discriminate crop types. The results showed that the estimated area and the statistics were correlated well at the county-level. Furthermore, there was little difference between the crop area estimated by the MODIS data and the statistics at province-level. Our study shows that the method we designed is promising for use in regional spatial scale crop mapping in Northern China using the MODIS NDVI time-series.     

Non-point source pollution in Indian agriculture: Estimation of nitrogen losses from rice crop using remote sensing and GIS

The paper presents a detailed understanding of nitrogenous fertilizer use in Indian agriculture and estimation of seasonal nitrogen loosses from rice crop in Indo-Gangetic plain region, the ‘food bowl’ of the Indian sub-continent. An integrated methodology was developed for quantification of different forms of nitrogen losses from rice crop using remote sensing derived inputs, field data of fertilizer application, collateral data of soil and rainfall and nitrogen loss coefficients derived from published nitrogen dynamics studies. The spatial patterns of nitrogen losses in autumn or ‘kharif’ and spring or ‘rabi’ season rice at 1 × 1 km grid were generated using image processing and GIS. The nitrogen losses through leaching in form of urea-N, ammonium-N (NH₄-N) and nitrate-N (NO₃-N) are dominant over ammonia volatilization loss. The study results indicate that nitrogen loss through leaching in kharif and rabi rice is of the order of 34.9% and 39.8% of the applied nitrogenous fertilizer in the Indo-Gangetic plain region. This study provides a significant insight to the role of nitrogenous fertilizer as a major non-point source pollutant from agriculture.     

遥感和GIS技术应用于伊拉克南部Basrah省土地利用/覆盖变化及城市扩张研究(英文)

In recent years, land use/cover dynamic change has become a key subject that needs to be dealt with in the study of global environmental change. In this paper, remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) are integrated to monitor, map, and quantify the land use/cover change in the southern part of Iraq (Basrah Province was taken as a case) by using a 1:250 000 mapping scale. Remote sensing and GIS software were used to classify Landsat TM in 1990 and Landsat ETM+ in 2003 imagery into five land use and land cover (LULC) classes: vegetation, sand, urban area, unused land, and water bodies. Supervised classification and normalized difference build-up index (NDBI) were used respectively to retrieve its urban boundary. An accuracy assessment was performed on the 2003 LULC map to determine the reliability of the map. Finally, GIS software was used to quantify and illustrate the various LULC conversions that took place over the 13-year span of time. Results showed that the urban area had increased by the rate of 1.2% per year, with area expansion from 3 299.1 km² in 1990 to 3 794.9 km² in 2003. Large vegetation area in the north and southeast were converted into urban construction land. The land use/cover changes of Basrah Province were mainly caused by rapid development of the urban economy and population immigration from the countryside. In addition, the former government policy of “returning farmland to transportation and huge expansion in military camps” was the major driving force for vegetation land change. The paper concludes that remote sensing and GIS can be used to create LULC maps. It also notes that the maps generated can be used to delineate the changes that take place over time. Supported by the Al-Basrah University, Iraq, the Geo-information Science and Technology Program (No. IRT 0438)China).