MAPPING RICE CROPPING SYSTEM IN THE LOWER GANGETIC PLAIN USING LANDASAT 8 (OLI) AND MODIS IMAGERY

Abstract. The Indo-Gangetic basin is one of the productive rice growing areas in South-East Asia. Within this extensive flat fertile land, lower Gangetic basin, especially the south Bengal, is most intensively cultivated. In this study we map the rice growing areas using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) derived 8-day surface reflectance product from 2014 to 2015. The time series vegetation and wetness indices such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and Land Surface Water Index (LSWI) were used in the decision tree (DT) approach to detect the rice fields. The extracted rice pixels were compared with Landsat OLI derived rice pixels. The accuracy of the derived rice fields were computed with 163 field locations, and further compared with statistics derived from Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES). The results of the estimation shows a high degree of correlation (r = 0.9) with DES reported area statistics. The estimated error of the area statistics while compared with the Landsat OLI was ±15%. The method, however, shows its efficiency in tracing the periodic changes in rice cropping area in this part of Gangetic basin and its neighboring areas.