Improved phenology-based rice mapping algorithm by integrating optical and radar data

Information on rice planting areas is critically important for food and water security, as well as for adapting to climate change. Mapping rice globally remains challenging due to the diverse climatic conditions and various rice cropping systems worldwide. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, which is immune to climatic conditions, plays a vital role in rice mapping in cloudy, rainy, low-latitude regions but it suffers from commission errors in high-latitude regions. Conversely, optical data performs well in high-latitude regions due to its high observation frequency and less cloud contamination but faces significant omission errors in low-latitude regions. An effective integrated method that combines both data types is key to global rice mapping. Here, we propose a novel adaptive rice mapping framework named Rice-Sentinel that combines Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data. First, we extracted key phenological phases of rice (e.g., the flooding and transplanting phase and the rapid growth phase), by analyzing the characteristic V-shaped changes in the Sentinel-1 VH curve. Second, we identified potential flooding signals in rice pixels by integrating the VH time series from Sentinel-1 with the Land Surface Water Index (LSWI) and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) from Sentinel-2, utilizing the generated phenology phases. Third, the rapid growth signals of rice following its flooding phase were identified using Sentinel-2 data. Finally, rice fields were identified by integrating flooding and rapid growth signals. The resultant rice maps in six different case regions of the world (Northeast and South China, California, USA, Mekong Delta of Vietnam, Sakata City in Japan, and Mali in Africa) showed overall accuracies over 90 % and F1 scores over 0.91, outperforming the existing methods and products. This algorithm combines the strengths of both optical and SAR time series data and leverages biophysical principles to generate robust rice maps without relying on any prior ground truth samples. It is well-positioned for global applications and is expected to contribute to global rice monitoring efforts.