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Estimating the biomass of rice by combining GF-1 and RADARSAT-2 data

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Abstract

Crop aboveground biomass (AGB) is one of the most important indicators in diagnosing and monitoring agricultural ecosystems. AGB estimation not only closely relates to monitoring crop yield and production but also contributes to the research about the carbon cycle process and global climate change. In this study, the AGB of rice was estimated by vegetation indices (VIs) from optical data (GF-1) and polarization parameters (PPs) from radar data (RADARSAT-2) by best-fitting regression function first. Then, considering the different characteristics of these two types of remote sensing data, the vegetation indices and polarization parameters were combined to estimate the rice AGB. The results showed that all the selected vegetation indices and most of the polarization parameters were significantly correlated with the measured rice biomass; CIgreen and Anisotropy presented the best performance (R2 = 0.6123, RMSE = 0.4861 kg/m2 and R2 = 0.6543, RMSE = 0.5418 kg/m2, respectively). Compared with a single index or parameter, the new hybrid index significantly improves the biomass estimation: R2 = 0.7049; RMSE = 0.4849 kg/m2. A sensitivity analysis further revealed that combining optical vegetation index and microwave bands maintains the good prediction of AGB during the whole rice growth period. The study has proved the potential of retrieving rice AGB jointly using optical images and SAR data.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers whose useful comments will improve the paper.

Funding

This research was supported by the department of housing and urban rural development of Jiangsu Province project (No. 2019ZD001112) and Foundation of Jiangsu Educational Committee (No. 20KJD170006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huai, 223001, China

    Xueliang Feng, Le Tang & Minhui Xu

Authors
  1. Xueliang Feng
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  2. Le Tang
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  3. Minhui Xu
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Contributions

Xueliang Feng was responsible for the implementation of the method used to estimate the AGB and for data preparation, processing, and writing of the manuscript. Le Tang was responsible for the research design and analysis. Minhui Xu edited the figures and tables in the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xueliang Feng.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Haroun Chenchouni

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Feng, X., Tang, L. & Xu, M. Estimating the biomass of rice by combining GF-1 and RADARSAT-2 data. Arab J Geosci 14, 2124 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-08545-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-08545-7

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