Method for Mapping Rice Fields in Complex Landscape Areas Based on Pre-Trained Convolutional Neural Network from HJ-1 A/B Data

Accurate and timely information about rice planting areas is essential for crop yield estimation, global climate change and agricultural resource management. In this study, we present a novel pixel-level classification approach that uses convolutional neural network (CNN) model to extract the features of enhanced vegetation index (EVI) time series curve for classification. The goal is to explore the practicability of deep learning techniques for rice recognition in complex landscape regions, where rice is easily confused with the surroundings, by using mid-resolution remote sensing images. A transfer learning strategy is utilized to fine tune a pre-trained CNN model and obtain the temporal features of the EVI curve. Support vector machine (SVM), a traditional machine learning approach, is also implemented in the experiment. Finally, we evaluate the accuracy of the two models. Results show that our model performs better than SVM, with the overall accuracies being 93.60% and 91.05%, respectively. Therefore, this technique is appropriate for estimating rice planting areas in southern China on the basis of a pre-trained CNN model by using time series data. And more opportunity and potential can be found for crop classification by remote sensing and deep learning technique in the future study.