Abstract
The estimation of the rice-planted acreage is an important subject for agricultural administration in Japan. The rice-planted acreage is estimated by statistical calculation based on field survey work, which is implemented every year and consumes a lot of time, labor and budget. It is desirable to develop a estimation method using satellite data which would save time, labor and budget. The pixel-based method (PBM) is the conventional estimation methods using satellite data. In the pixel-based method, rice-planted fields are discriminated by satellite image pixels and acreage is calculated by totalizing the rice-planted pixels' area. Alternatively, a precise estimation method called "Outline data Referring Method (ORM)" discriminates rice-planted plots using satellite data and agricultural plot vector data. The rice-planted acreage is calculated by totalizing the rice-planted plots' area in ORM. Agricultural plot vector data and each plot's acreage can be provided precisely by existing data. This paper is a case study in which the rice-planted acreage is estimated by ORM using EO-1 Hyperion data. Hyperion data has a ground resolution of thirty (30) meters. In order to evaluate the estimation accuracy, the rice-planted acreage was estimated by pixel-based method using Hyperion data. These rice-planted acreages obtained by ORM and pixel-based method were then compared with the reference data calculated from IKONOS data. The estimation error ratio by ORM and PBM was -0.2% and -3.1%, respectively. As the result of this study, ORM has a possibility that rice-planted acreage can be estimated precisely using satellite data such as LANDSAT TM in a region where the size of the satellite image pixel is comparable to the size of paddy plot. Various kinds of satellite data such as LANDSAT TM data are available to estimate the rice-planted acreage by ORM. Therefore the utilization of satellite data for rice-planted acreage estimation will progress in the future.
