Rice identification using TerraSAR-X data

Most of China's rice production is located in the southern provinces of the country where frequent cloudy conditions hinder the successful acquisition of optical imagery. Small field sizes and complex planting patterns pose additional challenges to crop mapping using remote sensing approaches. High resolution radar data are most suitable for operational monitoring of crops in this region of China. In this study, the suitability of high-resolution TerraSAR-X StripMap data (6 m resolution) for identification of rice was investigated for a site in Xuwen, Guangdong Province, China. An integrated decision tree and object-oriented classification approach was used. The results showed that higher rice identification accuracies can be obtained using multi-temporal TerraSAR-X data at the tillering, jointing and flowering periods. Both the VV and VH polarizations provided accurate rice identification.