Harmonic analysis of time-series MODIS

vegetation index data for monitoring winter

crops in the Wimmera-Mallee region of
Victoria
Medhavy Thankappan1, Kenton Lawson2, Shanti Reddy1 and Phil Kokic2
1Geoscience Australia
2Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
Acknowledgments

Geoscience Australia APSRU DPIF-QLD

Lan-Wei Wang Andries Potgieter
Bill Levett
Anis Islam NLR Netherlands
Alan Forghani Wout Verhoef
Albert van der Kamp
ABARE
Chun Liang
Milly Lubulwa

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
 Agricultural Statistics
• Crop type, area & production: Ag Census
and Survey (ABS), Farm surveys (ABARE)
• NAMS, SPREAD II: regional ag. land use
mapping with satellite derived information
and ABS statistics (BRS)
• Pastures from Space (CSIRO, WA Agric,
Landgate)
• RCFS: shire-wise yield model for wheat and
sorghum (QDPI&F)
• GAP: near-real-time crop-specific area and
pre-harvest or in-season production
estimates not available

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
 Method
Study Area
• Mallee and Wimmera Statistical Divisions comprising 16
SLAs in north western Victoria
• Predominantly agricultural, cereal crops, legumes and
oilseeds

RS / Ancillary Data
• 16-day composite MODIS EVI at 250 m (2000 – 2006)
• Land-use and very limited ground truth

Approach
• HANTS-Harmonic ANalysis of Time Series (each crop year)
• Non-agricultural pixels (water bodies / forests) masked
• Unsupervised classification of HANTS outputs (ISOCLASS)
• Aggregation of crop class area at SD and SLA levels
14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
Study Area (Mallee & Wimmera SDs)

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
 Harmonic Analysis
Seasonal VI series
• Decomposes periodic
Phase
phenomena into a series of
functions (terms)
Amplitude
• Each term is defined by a unique
amplitude / phase value 0
2π

• Identification of land cover types

is possible using values of Time

phase, amplitude & additive term

0+1
0+1+2
0+1+2+3

Amplitude
Rescaled VI

Adding successive terms to produce Decomposition of VI series into

final curves component terms

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
 Why Harmonic Analysis?
• Vegetation exhibits distinctive seasonal
patterns of variation with periodic
characteristics
• Potential for significant data reduction (time-
series)
• Not biased by data set (size, range or
dominance of spectral features
• Acts as a noise filter for non-periodic
influences introduced by processing or
cloud
• Has been applied successfully to land-use /
land cover studies including crops

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
 A1 HANTS Outputs P1

A0

A2 P2

A3 P3

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
Raw versus HANTS VI Profiles

7000
Wheat
6000
5000
4000
EVI

3000
2000
1000
0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23
16-day period
4500
4000 Field Peas
3500
3000
2500
EVI

2000
1500
1000
500
0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 Original
16-day period HANTS

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
HANTS Partial Variance 2004

1st term 2nd term 3rd term

Amplitude

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
 HANTS Partial Variance 2004

1st term 2nd term 3rd term

Amplitude

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
 Clustering HANTS outputs

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
 Results : Statistical Divisions (2000 - 2005)
Mallee Statistical Division Wimmera Statistical Division

1600 1600
MODIS-HANTS
1400 1400 ABS (crops)
Winter Crop Area ('000 ha)

Winter Crop Area ('000 ha)

ABS (+ pasture)
1200 1200

1000 1000

800 800

600 600

400 400

200 200

0 0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Crop Year Crop Year

Relative deviations are generally higher in Mallee for all

years

The largest RD for Mallee (22.9%) and Wimmera (16.7%)

was observed in 2000 (smaller time series?)

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
 Results : SLAs (2000 & 2005) • Relative
deviations
400
ABS Ag Census
350 MODIS-HANTS
Winter Crop Area ('000 ha)

300

250
for SLAs
200 are higher
150

100
(than SD)
50
2000 for both
0

500
SLA 2000 and
450 2005
400
Winter Crop Area ('000 ha)

350

300

250
• MODIS
200 HANTS
150
crop area
estimates
100

50
2005
0
higher than
Swanhill Bal

Swanhill Robinvale
Horsham Bal
Buloke South
Buloke North

Mildura Pta
Gannawarra

Hindmarsh

Mildura Ptb

NGrampians StArnaud

NGrampians Stawell

Swanhill Central
Horsham Central

Yarriambiack North

Yarriambiack South
West Wimmera

ABS for
most SLAs
SLA

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
Summary Results Winter Crop Area 2000

SD30 (Mallee) ABS Ag Census 2001 RD (%)

1,260,091 ha 1,125,256 ha 11.9
1,168,633 ha* 7.8

SD25 (Wimmera)
1,346,793 ha 1,187,276 ha 13.4
1,238,317 ha* 8.7

SD30 + SD25
2,606,884 ha 2,312,532 ha 12.7
2,406,950 ha* 8.3

*Crops for pasture and hay included

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
Summary Results Winter Crop Area 2005

SD30 (Mallee) ABS Ag Census 2006 RD (%)

1,312,896 ha 1,220,517 ha 7.6
1,265,171 ha* 3.7
SD25 (Wimmera)
1,222,260 ha 1,125,041 ha 8.6
1,201,299 ha* 1.7
SD30 + SD25
2,535,156 ha 2,345,558 ha 8.1
2,466,470 ha* 2.8

*Crops for pasture and hay included

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
 Summary of Key Findings

• Winter crop area results for Mallee and Wimmera

SDs comparable to ABS estimates, potential of
HA for time series applications involving crop
monitoring

• Significant reduction of time-series data volumes

and noise, better classification results using EVI
compared to NDVI

• Application areas that could benefit from HA

include land-use / land-cover mapping

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008
 Thank you
Questions ?

14th Australasian Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Conference, Darwin 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2008