Satellite Remote Sensing Shows Potential in Agricultural Monitoring

Sep 05, 2024

Paddy rice is an important agricultural product, and accurate mapping of paddy rice fields is essential for enhancing food security, promoting sustainable agriculture, increasing crop yields, and facilitating technological advancements.

A research group led by Prof. Sun Xiaobing from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a method for accurately mapping paddy rice cultivation in Anhui, a province in eastern China. The work is published in the journal Agriculture.

Researchers combined annual phenological features with Sentinel-1/2 imagery, leveraging satellite remote sensing and machine learning to enhance agricultural monitoring.

They derived annual phenological variations from verified ground truth data and assigned several vegetation indices to different phenological phases.

This helps them get pixel-level rice planting distribution maps through machine learning.

The research team used an automatic sample expansion technique to increase the sample size and stratified different grids within the study area.

Researchers validated the results of this method with a confusion matrix, the Anhui Statistical Yearbook, and other rice mapping algorithms of similar resolutions. The method demonstrated high accuracy in primary grain-producing areas of Anhui with less than 10% of error and showed practical value in agriculture.

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Video: From Conventional to Regenerative: Will Groeneveld’s Journey Back to the Land

"You realize you've got a pretty finite number of years to do this. If you ever want to try something new, you better do it."

That mindset helped Will Groeneveld take a bold turn on his Alberta grain farm. A lifelong farmer, Will had never heard of regenerative agriculture until 2018, when he attended a seminar by Kevin Elmy that shifted his worldview. What began as curiosity quickly turned into a deep exploration of how biology—not just chemistry—shapes the health of our soils, crops and ecosystems.

In this video, Will candidly reflects on his family’s farming history, how the operation evolved from a traditional mixed farm to grain-only, and how the desire to improve the land pushed him to invite livestock back into the rotation—without owning a single cow.

Today, through creative partnerships and a commitment to the five principles of regenerative agriculture, Will is reintroducing diversity, building soil health and extending living roots in the ground for as much of the year as possible. Whether it’s through intercropping, zero tillage (which he’s practiced since the 1980s) or managing forage for visiting cattle, Will’s approach is a testament to continuous learning and a willingness to challenge old norms.

Will is a participant in the Regenerative Agriculture Lab (RAL), a social innovation process bringing together producers, researchers, retailers and others to co-create a resilient regenerative agriculture system in Alberta. His story highlights both the potential and humility required to farm with nature, not against it.