Timely Plastic-Mulched Cropland Extraction Method from Complex Mixed Surfaces in Arid Regions

Plastic mulch is extensively applied in agricultural production in arid regions. It significantly influences the interactions between land and atmosphere by altering underlying surface characteristics. An accurate and timely extraction method for Plastic-Mulched Cropland (PMC) is required to understand land surface energy transfer processes, eco-hydrological cycle, the climate effect of PMC, and in the management of water resources. In this study, we proposed a Timely Plastic-mulched cropland Extraction Method (TPEM) from complex mixed surfaces with multi-source remote sensing data in the Shiyanghe River Basin (SRB), a typical representation of a complex and inhomogeneous arid region in the northwest of China. We defined TPEM in three phases; in the first phase, the spectral characteristic curves were drawn from ground object points labeled by visual interpretation with multi-source remote sensing data. In the second phase, a spectral characteristic analysis of the modified index was proposed to amplify the difference between PMC and non-PMC ground objects. Finally, the Classification and Regression Tree (CART) classifier was used to generate thresholds of indices as PMC extraction rules. The results showed that it can extract the boundary of PMC in large-scale farmland, distinguish PMC from ground objects in complex mixed surfaces, and separate the PMC from desert land that shares same spectral characteristics with PMC. The TPEM is verified to be efficient and robust, with an overall accuracy of 0.9234, quantity disagreement of 0.0541, and allocation disagreement of 0.0224, and outperformed two extensively used PMC extraction methods, especially for timely PMC extraction when satellite data only during the period that ground surface incomplete covered by plastic mulch is available. This study will provide us with an accurate and timely method to extract PMC, especially in the widely distributed complex mixed surfaces.

Automated summary

In this study, a timely extraction method for Plastic-Mulched Cropland (PMC) was proposed in a complex and inhomogeneous arid region in northwest China. The Timely Plastic-mulched cropland Extraction Method (TPEM) showed efficiency and robustness in extracting PMC, especially in widely distributed complex mixed surfaces, outperforming previously used methods.