Wheat growth profile: satellite monitoring and crop yield modelling

The most important advantage of the low resolution National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (NOAA AVHRR) data is its high temporal frequency and high radiometric sensitivity which helps in vegetation detection in the visible and near-infrared spectral regions. In areas where most of the crop cultivation is in large contiguous areas, and if the AVHRR data are selected for time period such that the crop of interest is well discriminated from other crops, these data can be used for monitoring vegetative growth and condition very effectively. The present study deals with the application of AVHRR data for the monitoring of the wheat crop in its seventeen main growing districts of the Rajasthan state. The fourteen date AVHRR data covering the entire growth period have been used to generate the normalized difference vegetation index (NDV1) growth profile for the crop by masking the non-crop pixels following the two-date NDVI change method. The growth profile parameters and other derived parameters, such as post-anthesis senescence rate and areas under the entire growth profile or under selected growth periods have been related to the district average wheat yield through statistical regression models. Various methods adopted for wheat pixels masking have been critically evaluated. It is found that the wheat yield can be predicted well by the area under the profile in different growth periods.     

Yield estimation of summer crops grown in a mixed cropping area,a spectral growth curve profile approach

Estimation of crop production in advance of the harvest has been an intensively researched field in agriculture. Spectral parameters derived from the spectral growth profile being indicator of growth and development characteristics of the crop have a direct utility in crop-yield modeling. The present study is undertaken in a mixed cropping area of Karveer taluka, Kolhapur district, Maharashtra, to assess feasibility of multi-date moderately coarse WiFS data in developing spectral growth curves following Badhwar model (1980) for summer groundnut and paddy. The analysis highlighted potential of moderately coarse resolution WiFS data in discriminating the crops grown in fragmented conditions, provided detailed and adequate ground truth is used. The regression models using spectral parameters explained 94 % variation in paddy yield. However, model using ground information as peak LAI in addition to spectral variables, could explain 91 % variation in groundnut yield; thus for prediction of low-yielding and poorly managed crop a convergent model is essential. Vegetative growth rate during the pre-heading phase and total growing season absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (APAR) indicated by the area under the curve are the main predictors.     

Relation of wheat yield with parameters derived from a spectral growth profile

An attempt has been made to generate crop growth profiles using multi-date NOAA AVHRR data of wheat-growing season of 1987–88 for the districts of Punjab and Haryana states of India. A profile model proposed by Badhwar was fitted to the multi-date Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values obtained from geographically referenced samples in each district. A novel approach of deriving a set of physiologically meaningful profile parameters has been outlined and the relation of these parameters with district wheat yields has been studied in order to examine the potential of growth profiles for crop-yield modelling. The parameter ‘area under the profile’ is found to be the best estimator of yield. However, with such a parameter time available for prediction gets reduced. Combination of different profile parameters shows improvement in correlation but lacks the consistency for individual state data.     

Yield estimation using SPOT-VEGETATION products: A case study of wheat in European countries

In the period 1999–2009 ten-day SPOT-VEGETATION products of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) at 1 km spatial resolution were used in order to estimate and forecast the wheat yield over Europe. The products were used together with official wheat yield statistics to fine-tune a statistical model for each NUTS2 region, based on the Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) method. This method has been chosen to construct the model in the presence of many correlated predictor variables (10-day values of remote sensing indicators) and a limited number of wheat yield observations. The model was run in two different modalities: the “monitoring mode”, which allows for an overall yield assessment at the end of the growing season, and the “forecasting mode”, which provides early and timely yield estimates when the growing season is on-going. Performances of yield estimation at the regional and national level were evaluated using a cross-validation technique against yield statistics and the estimations were compared with those of a reference crop growth model. Models based on either NDVI or FAPAR normalized indicators achieved similar results with a minimal advantage of the model based on the FAPAR product. Best modelling results were obtained for the countries in Central Europe (Poland, North-Eastern Germany) and also Great Britain. By contrast, poor model performances characterize countries as follows: Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, Romania and Hungary. Country level yield estimates using the PLSR model in the monitoring mode, and those of a reference crop growth model that do not make use of remote sensing information showed comparable accuracies. The largest estimation errors were observed in Portugal, Spain and Finland for both approaches. This convergence may indicate poor reliability of the official yield statistics in these countries.     

陆面温度反演算法——劈窗算法的敏感度分析

首先给出ＣＯ２ 倍增下遥感光合作物产量的概念模型,之后分析未受ＣＯ２ 倍增的遥感光合作物产量估测模型;在考虑ＣＯ２ 倍增对作物产量的影响后,对影响干物质累积的作物光合速率的模型进行修正,进而修正遥感光合作物产量估测模型。建立ＣＯ２ 倍增下作物产量响应模型,求取各参数,并在ＣＯ２ 倍增下对我国华北地区冬小麦产量响应进行填图,表明模型的估测结果有良好的可比性。     

Analysis of sorghum yield dependence on crop growth characteristics using noaa-avhrr data

Growth profiles of 1987-88 rabi sorghum crop cultivated in spatially extensive sites in six tehsils of Solapur and Ahmadnagar districts in Maharashtra have been generated using multidate NOAA AVHRR data based on crop growth equation suggested by Badhwar (1980). The sensitive parameters for sorghum yield modelling have been identified. The correlation of final grain yield with growth parameters shows that yield relationship is stronger when logarithmic senescence rate and timeintegrated logarithmic senescence rate are considered as the parameters instead of its value on any day during 30 days senescence period after attaining maximum vegetative cover.     

Ground Based Bistatic Scatterometer Measurement for the Estimation of Growth Variables of Ladyfinger Crop at X-Band

The present study describes the ground based bistatic scatterometer measurements of ladyfinger crop at its various growth stages in the specular direction with the azimuthal angle (\( \phi = 0 \)) for the angular incidence angle ranging from 20° to 60° at the interval of 10° at HH and VV polarization. An outdoor ladyfinger crop bed of an area 4 × 4 m² was specially prepared for the ground based bistatic scatterometer measurements. The crop growth variables like vegetation water content, leaf area index, fresh biomass, and plant height were also measured at the time of each bistatic scatterometer measurement. The specular bistatic scattering coefficients were found to be decreasing with the crop growth variables up to the maturity stage and then after it increased slightly. The linear regression analysis was carried out between specular bistatic scattering coefficient and crop growth variables at all the incidence angles for HH and VV polarization to select the optimum angle of incidence and polarization for the estimation of crop growth variables. The potential of subtractive clustering based adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system was applied for the estimation of crop growth variables. The estimated values for different crop growth variables were found almost close to the observed values.     

中国区域MuSyQ叶面积指数产品验证与分析

对多源遥感数据协同生产的2010年—2015年中国区域1 km空间分辨率5天合成的MuSyQ（Multi-source data Synergized Quantitative remote sensing production system）叶面积指数LAI产品进行验证。参考现有的LAI产品（MODIS c5,GLASS LAI）和中国生态系统研究网络部分农田和森林站点可用的LAI地面测量数据,从时空连续性、时空一致性、精度和准确性等方面对中国区域的MuSyQ LAI产品进行定性和定量分析与评价。结果表明：（1） MuSyQ LAI产品在保证精度优于MODIS产品的情况下,时间分辨率和时空连续性均有提高。MuSyQ LAI与其他LAI产品（MODIS c5,GLASS LAI）在整体上有很好的一致性（RMSE=1.0,RMSE=0.81）,但对常绿阔叶林高值处的描述不稳定;（2） 与LAI地面测量数据相比,MuSyQ LAI产品与地面参考图对比结果较好（最高相关性（R²=0.54）和较低总体误差（RMSE=0.96））,其在阔叶作物生长季高值处有些许低估且在某些阔叶林站点有些高估。整体上,MuSyQ LAI产品呈现出较高的精度,可靠的空间分布和连续稳定的时间分布,且对森林LAI的描述具有更可靠的动态范围。     

中国区域MODIS LAI产品及其改进

叶面积指数(LAI)是表征地表植被生长状况和进行陆面过程系统模拟的一个重要参数,搭载在Terra和Aqua两颗卫星上的MODIS传感器能够长时问收集全球陆地表面LAI的变化信息.然而,目前发布的MODIS LAI数据产品的时空不连续性制约着MODIS LAI产品在农作物长势监测与产量估计、地球表面过程模拟、全球变化研究等领域的应用.论文对中围区域MODIS LAI的标准产品进行了分析和总结,指出造成日前发布的中国区域MODIS LAI的标准产品在时间和空间上的不连续性,既有MODIS LAI反演算法的原因,更有MODIS反射率数据质量的原因.针对中国区域MODIS LAI标准产品存在的时空不连续性问题,论文在TSF滤波算法的基础上,进一步考虑地表反射率数据质量对MODIS LAI标准产品的影响,提出了改进的TSF滤波算法,并给出了基于该算法生成的时间上和空间上更具连续性的中国区域的MODIS LAI改进产品.本文发展的新算法和LAI改进产品可为相关研究提供LAI数据和产品算法参考.     

Cotton yield prediction through spectral parameters

To predict the crop yield from spectral parameters, a field experiment was conducted on cotton crop during 1997-98 Kharif season on a sandy loam soil at the Punjab Agricultural Unjversity, Ludhiana. India. Spectral reflectance and agronomic measurements were made for cotton species (American and Desi cotton), sown on two dates (May 1 and May 29) under five nitrogen levels (0, 40, 80, 120 and 160 kg/ha). Regression analysis showed that growth variables had poor correlation with seed cotton yield for all three models, however, yield attributes were significantly and highly correlated for second degree model with seed cotton yield. The integrated Radiance Ratio (RR) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) measured over time were significantly correlated quadratically with seed cotton yield on three time segment periods viz., 81–110, 111–140 and 141–200 DAS, but highest correlation values were obtained during 81–110 DAS, In American cotton, the highest correlation coefficient for RR and NDVI were 0.91 and 0.81, respectively; whereas for Desi cotton these values were 0.88 and 0.84, respectively.     

Effects of water and heat on growth of winter wheat in the North China Plain

The North China Plain (NCP) was selected as the study area and the effects of water and heat were analysed to determine the dominant factor affecting winter wheat growth. The mean, minimum and maximum temperatures, precipitation and soil moisture data were selected to analyse the correlations between the leaf area index (the growth indicator) and these factors using long time series half-monthly data (2–5 months) (from 1982 to 2010). The results showed that temperature was the main factor affecting the growth of winter wheat in the NCP. The growth of winter wheat had weak correlations with precipitation and soil moisture and the influence of water on winter wheat growth was smaller than the influence of heat. In the northern part of the NCP, mainly including the north-west region of Shandong Province and the southern region of Hebei Province, irrigation was necessary in late February and early March.     

Visualizing the ill-posedness of the inversion of a canopy radiative transfer model: A case study for Sentinel-2

Monitoring biophysical and biochemical vegetation variables in space and time is key to understand the earth system. Operational approaches using remote sensing imagery rely on the inversion of radiative transfer models, which describe the interactions between light and vegetation canopies. The inversion required to estimate vegetation variables is, however, an ill-posed problem because of variable compensation effects that can cause different combinations of soil and canopy variables to yield extremely similar spectral responses. In this contribution, we present a novel approach to visualise the ill-posed problem using self-organizing maps (SOM), which are a type of unsupervised neural network. The approach is demonstrated with simulations for Sentinel-2 data (13 bands) made with the Soil-Leaf-Canopy (SLC) radiative transfer model. A look-up table of 100,000 entries was built by randomly sampling 14 SLC model input variables between their minimum and maximum allowed values while using both a dark and a bright soil. The Sentinel-2 spectral simulations were used to train a SOM of 200 × 125 neurons. The training projected similar spectral signatures onto either the same, or contiguous, neuron(s). Tracing back the inputs that generated each spectral signature, we created a 200 × 125 map for each of the SLC variables. The lack of spatial patterns and the variability in these maps indicate ill-posed situations, where similar spectral signatures correspond to different canopy variables. For Sentinel-2, our results showed that leaf area index, crown cover and leaf chlorophyll, water and brown pigment content are less confused in the inversion than variables with noisier maps like fraction of brown canopy area, leaf dry matter content and the PROSPECT mesophyll parameter. This study supports both educational and on-going research activities on inversion algorithms and might be useful to evaluate the uncertainties of retrieved canopy biophysical and biochemical state variables.     

Crop growth modelling and crop yield forecasting using satellite-derived meteorological inputs

Distributed crop simulation models are typically confronted with considerable uncertainty in weather variables. In this paper the use of MeteoSat-derived meteorological products to replace weather variables interpolated from weather stations (temperature, reference evapotranspiration and radiation) is explored. Simulations for winter-wheat were carried for Spain, Poland and Belgium using both interpolated and MeteoSat-derived weather variables. The results were spatially aggregated to national and regional level and were evaluated by comparing the simulation results of both approaches and by assessing the relationships with crop yield statistics over the periods 1995–2003 from EUROSTAT. The results indicate that potential crop yield can be simulated well using MeteoSat-derived meteorological variables, but that water-stress hardly occurs in the water-limited simulations. This is caused by a difference in reference evapotranspiration which was 20–30% smaller in case of MeteoSat. As a result, the simulations using MeteoSat-derived meteorological variables performed considerably poorer in a regression analyses with crop yield statistics on national and regional level. Our results indicate that a recalibration of the model parameters is necessary before the MeteoSat-derived meteorological variables can be used operationally in the system.     

District wise yield models of rice in Bihar based on water requirement and meteorological data

Pre-harvest crop production forecast has been successfully provided by remote sensing technique. However, the probability to get cloud-free optical remote sensing data during kharif season is poor. Microwave data having the capability to penetrate cloud is used in the absence of cloud free optical remote sensing data. Yield models in broad band frequency range are in development stage. Meteorological yield models are developed and predicted yield is combined with area estimated by remote sensing data to provide rice production forecast. This paper describes the methodology adopted for improving the predictability of rice yield before harvest of the crop in Bihar province by taking into consideration meteorological parameters during its growth cycle upto October. Models developed using fortnightly meteorological data have been found to give reasonably fair indications of expected yield of rice in advance of harvest. The yield predictions have been made based on meteorological data and effective rainfall based on water requirement calculations representing a group of districts under similar agro-climatic zones, which could be further improved by incorporating meteorological data of individual districts within each group.     

Urbanization in China from the end of 1980s until 2010 – spatial dynamics and patterns of growth using EO-data

Urbanization in China has been experiencing a remarkable dynamism in the past 40 years. The most evident implication of urbanization is the physical growth of cities. We analyze urban land growth rates and changes in spatial urban forms from the end of the 1980s to 2010 based on the authoritative National Land Use/Cover Database of China. We present new spatial measures that describe ‘urban land growth types’ and ‘fluctuations in urban land growth’ within the monitoring time span with a temporal interval of five-year steps. We evaluate the correlations between urban land growth rates and socioeconomic data. Results show that (1) distinct characteristics exist on the spatiotemporal evolutions of urban land growth rates in terms of area and perimeter, e.g. coastal areas exhibit the most dramatic growth rates; (2) the spatial distribution characteristics of ‘urban land growth types’ and ‘fluctuations in urban land growth’ follow similar spatial patterns across China, e.g. significant differences exist between the eastern region and other regions; and (3) a moderate correlation exists between urban area growth rate and urban population growth rate at an R² of 0.37. By contrast, we determine no significant correlation between urban area growth rate and tertiary industry value growth rate.     

Multiple forecasts of kharif rice in orissa state-four year experience of fasal pilot study

Considering the requirement of multiple pre-harvest crop forecasts, the concept of Forecasting Agricultural output using Space, Agrometeorology and Land based observations (FASAL) has been formulated. Development of procedure and demonstration of this technique for four in-season forecasts for kharif rice has been carried out as a pilot study in Orissa State since 1998. As the availability of cloud-free optical remote sensing data during kharif season is very poor for Orissa state, multi-date RADARSAT SCANSAR data were used for acreage estimation of kharif rice. Meteorological models have been developed for early assessment of acreage and prediction of yield at mid and late crop growth season. Four in-season forecasts were made during four kharif seasons (1998-2001); the first forecast of zone level rice acreage at the beginning of kharif crop season using meteorological models, second forecast of district level acreage at mid growth season using two-date RADARSAT SCANSAR data and yield using meteorological models, third forecast at late growth season of district level acreage using three-date RADARSAT SCANSAR data and yield using meteorological models and revised forecast incorporating field observations at maturity. The results of multiple forecasts have shown rice acreage estimation and yield prediction with deviation up to 14 and 11 per cent respectively. This study has demonstrated the potential of FASAL concept to provide inseason multiple forecasts using data of remote sensing, meteorology and land based observations.     

区域作物生长过程的遥感提取方法

提出利用时序NDVI数据提取作物生长过程方法。遥感数据在采集过程中受云、大气因子的影响 ,以及混合像元问题 ,造成时序植被指数值变得没有规律 ,对比性不强。采用基于最小二次方拟合的谐函数分析方法 ,依据作物轮作规律和生长周期性特征 ,用主要频率的正弦、余弦谐函数重建时序图像 ,去除了影像中云污染的影响。以中国的旱地为例 ,考虑到像元内旱地对NDVI值的贡献率 ,计算区域内旱地像元加权平均值来反映其作物生长过程。同时与区域所有像元的平均值、旱地平均值等统计方法的结果进行对比分析 ,表明区域内旱地的加权平均值能够削弱旱地比例和地域间的差异 ,突出耕地上作物的生长过程特征。通过与地面实测数据分析 ,平滑前后的作物生长过程与叶面积指数相关性增加 5 %— 11% ,采用区域加权平均的方法得到的作物生长过程 ,比旱地平均和NDVI平均的结果与叶面积指数的相关性增加 14 %— 17%。     

基于NDVI时间序列数据的江西省水稻种植制度变化研究

利用Savitzky-Golay滤波对覆盖江西省范围的SPOT VGT NDVI时间序列数据进行平滑处理的基础上,结合坡度数据,通过非监督分类的方法提取了江西省2000、2005和2010年水稻种植范围,并根据NDVI的年内动态变化,从水稻种植范围、水稻生长季起始时间、水稻复种指数和NDVI最大振幅等分析了江西省水稻种植和生长情况,探讨2000~2010年江西省水稻生产的变化。     

Spectral wheat growth profile in Punjab using IRS WiFS data

A functional form of crop spectral profile suggested by Badhwar was applied to district-wise wheat Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values relatively normalised by Pseudo-Invariant Feature (urban and built-up) NDVI values, derived from Wide Field Sensor (WiFS) onboard Indian Remote Sensing Satellites (IRS) for 17 dates during 1999–2000 rabi season. The goodness of overall profile fitting and the three basic parameters i.e., crop emergence date (T_o), and crop specific parameters (a and P) was found to be statistically significant. While a corresponds to profile progressive growth rate, β corresponds to profile decay rate. A comparison with earlier studies in Punjab using NOAA-AVHRR indicated improvement in relation between peak NDVI and wheat yield. The estimated time of spectral emergence and profile-derived peak NDVI follow the observed behaviour of shortened crop pre-anthesis period with delayed sowing.     

Performance evaluation of automated approaches to building detection in multi-source aerial data

Automated approaches to building detection in multi-source aerial data are important in many applications, including map updating, city modeling, urban growth analysis and monitoring of informal settlements. This paper presents a comparative analysis of different methods for automated building detection in aerial images and laser data at different spatial resolutions. Five methods are tested in two study areas using features extracted at both pixel level and object level, but with the strong prerequisite of using the same training set for all methods. The evaluation of the methods is based on error measures obtained by superimposing the results on a manually generated reference map of each area. The results in both study areas show a better performance of the Dempster-Shafer and the AdaBoost methods, although these two methods also yield a number of unclassified pixels. The method of thresholding a normalized DSM performs well in terms of the detection rate and reliability in the less vegetated Mannheim study area, but also yields a high rate of false positive errors. The Bayesian methods perform better in the Memmingen study area where buildings have more or less the same heights.