CART and IDC – based classification of irrigated agricultural fields using multi-source satellite data

Abstract

To understand water productivity of crops cultivated in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, this study was conducted to generate a reliable crop type map using a multi-temporal satellite data (ASTER, Landsat-8 and MODIS) and crop phenology. Classification And Regression Tree (CART) and ISO-DATA Cluster (IDC) classification techniques were utilized for the identification of crops. The Ideal Crop Spectral Curves were generated and utilized for the formulation of CART decision rules. For IDC, the stacked images of the phenology-integrated Normalized Difference Vegetation Index were utilized for the classification. The overall accuracy of the classified maps of CART was 76, 77 and 81% for ASTER, MODIS and Landsat-8, respectively. For IDC, the accuracy was determined at 67, 63 and 60% for ASTER, MODIS and Landsat-8, respectively. The developed decision rules can be efficiently used for mapping of crop types for the same agro-climatic region of the study area.

Keywords:

• Crop phenology
• decision tree
• spectral separability
• vegetation indices

Acknowledgements

The assistance provided by the graduate students, namely, Eng. Mohammed Elsiddig Ali Abass and Eng. Ahmed Galal Kayad in the field was quite valuable. The unstinted cooperation and support extended by Mr. Jack King and Mr. Alan King is gratefully acknowledged. Authors also thank Dr. R. Houborg, Water Desalination and Reuse Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, for the important suggestions in the manuscript preparation.