A phenology-based vegetation index for improving ratoon rice mapping using harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 data

Ratoon rice,which refers to a second harvest of rice obtained from the regenerated tillers originating from the stubble of the first harvested crop,plays an important role in both food security and agroecology while requiring minimal agricultural inputs.However,accurately identifying ratoon rice crops is challenging due to the similarity of its spectral features with other rice cropping systems(e.g.,double rice).Moreover,images with a high spatiotemporal resolution are essential since ratoon rice is generally cultivated in fragmented croplands within regions that frequently exhibit cloudy and rainy weather.In this study,taking Qichun County in Hubei Province,China as an example,we developed a new phenology-based ratoon rice vegetation index(PRVI)for the purpose of ratoon rice mapping at a 30 m spatial resolution using a robust time series generated from Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2(HLS)images.The PRVI that incorporated the red,near-infrared,and shortwave infrared 1 bands was developed based on the analysis of spectro-phenological separability and feature selection.Based on actual field samples,the performance of the PRVI for ratoon rice mapping was carefully evaluated by comparing it to several vegetation indices,including normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI),enhanced vegetation index(EVI)and land surface water index(LSWI).The results suggested that the PRVI could sufficiently capture the specific characteristics of ratoon rice,leading to a favorable separability between ratoon rice and other land cover types.Furthermore,the PRVI showed the best performance for identifying ratoon rice in the phenological phases characterized by grain filling and harvesting to tillering of the ratoon crop(GHS-TS2),indicating that only several images are required to obtain an accurate ratoon rice map.Finally,the PRVI performed better than NDVI,EVI,LSWI and their combination at the GHS-TS2 stages,with producer's accuracy and user's accuracy of 92.22 and 89.30%,respectively.These results demonstrate that the proposed PRVI based on HLS data can effectively identify ratoon rice in fragmented croplands at crucial phenological stages,which is promising for identifying the earliest timing of ratoon rice planting and can provide a fundamental dataset for crop management activities.

Assessing Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 spectral-temporal features for mapping tree species of northern plantation forests in Heilongjiang Province,China

Background:Accurate mapping of tree species is highly desired in the management and research of plantation forests,whose ecosystem services are currently under threats.Time-series multispectral satellite images,e.g.,from Landsat-8(L8)and Sentinel-2(S2),have been proven useful in mapping general forest types,yet we do not know quantitatively how their spectral features(e.g.,red-edge)and temporal frequency of data acquisitions(e.g.,16-day vs.5-day)contribute to plantation forest mapping to the species level.Moreover,it is unclear to what extent the fusion of L8 and S2 will result in improvements in tree species mapping of northern plantation forests in China.Methods:We designed three sets of classification experiments(i.e.,single-date,multi-date,and spectral-temporal)to evaluate the performances of L8 and S2 data for mapping keystone timber tree species in northern China.We first used seven pairs of L8 and S2 images to evaluate the performances of L8 and S2 key spectral features for separating these tree species across key growing stages.Then we extracted the spectral-temporal features from all available images of different temporal frequency of data acquisition(i.e.,L8 time series,S2 time series,and fusion of L8 and S2)to assess the contribution of image temporal frequency on the accuracy of tree species mapping in the study area.Results:1)S2 outperformed L8 images in all classification experiments,with or without the red edge bands(0.4%–3.4%and 0.2%–4.4%higher for overall accuracy and macro-F1,respectively);2)NDTI(the ratio of SWIR1 minus SWIR2 to SWIR1 plus SWIR2)and Tasseled Cap coefficients were most important features in all the classifications,and for time-series experiments,the spectral-temporal features of red band-related vegetation indices were most useful;3)increasing the temporal frequency of data acquisition can improve overall accuracy of tree species mapping for up to 3.2%(from 90.1%using single-date imagery to 93.3%using S2 time-series),yet similar overall accuracies were achieved using S2 time-series(93.3%)and the fusion of S2 and L8(93.2%).Conclusions:This study quantifies the contributions of L8 and S2 spectral and temporal features in mapping keystone tree species of northern plantation forests in China and suggests that for mapping tree species in China's northern plantation forests,the effects of increasing the temporal frequency of data acquisition could saturate quickly after using only two images from key phenological stages.

Commercial cash crop production and households'economic welfare:Evidence from the pulse farmers in rural China

Whether promoting cash crop production can increase household welfare has long been the focus of the food policy debate.This study first investigated the determinants of household behavior in commercial pulse farming.It then examined how households'commercial pulse production improves their economic welfare.We used a dataset of 848 households collected from 2018 to 2019 to estimate the determinants of household behavior in commercial pulse farming by the Heckman two-step model.The endogenous treatment regression(ETR)method was employed to examine the impact of commercial pulse farming on household economic welfare.The results showed that factors such as market purchase prices,agricultural technology services,farmers'access to loans,and government subsidies promoted smallholders'commercial pulse farming;production costs and perceptions of climate change risks constrained smallholders'commercial pulse production.Overall,commercial pulse production has increased household farm income but there was a limited impact on household off-farm income.Our findings suggest that policies aiming to increase households'cash crop production and market access could significantly improve the economic welfare of pulse farmers.