Satellite-based Rabi rice paddy field mapping in India: A case study on Telangana state
Abstract
Accurate rice area monitoring is critical for food security and agricultural policy in smallholder farming regions, yet conventional remote sensing approaches struggle with the spatiotemporal heterogeneity characteristic of fragmented agricultural landscapes. This study developed a phenology-driven classification framework that systematically adapts to local agro-ecological variations across 32 districts in Telangana, India during the 2018-19 Rabi rice season. The research reveals significant spatiotemporal diversity, with phenological timing varying by up to 50 days between districts and field sizes ranging from 0.01 to 2.94 hectares. Our district-specific calibration approach achieved 93.3% overall accuracy, with strong validation against official government statistics (R² = 0.920) demonstrating excellent agreement between remotely sensed and ground truth data. The framework successfully mapped 732,345 hectares by adapting to agro-climatic variations.
Type
Publication
Environmental Challenges, Volume 21
Key Findings
- 93.3% overall accuracy achieved through district-specific adaptive thresholding
- 732,345 hectares successfully mapped across 32 districts
- Strong validation against government statistics (R² = 0.920)
- Phenological timing varies up to 50 days between districts
- Successfully handles field sizes from 0.01 to 2.94 hectares
Research Impact
This work addresses critical challenges in agricultural monitoring for food security, demonstrating that phenology-driven approaches can achieve high accuracy in complex, fragmented agricultural landscapes typical of smallholder farming regions.
Authors
Independent Researcher & Geospatial Data Scientist
A Geospatial Data Scientist combining remote sensing, machine learning, and agricultural domain knowledge to address challenges in food security and environmental monitoring. Published peer-reviewed research achieving 93.3% accuracy in rice paddy mapping across 732,345 hectares in Telangana, India.