Estimation of the rice planting area using digital elevation model and multitemporal moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer

Rice is the important staple crop in China, the estimation of rice yield is an important component of country, and remote sensing technology is an important means of estimation of rice yield. Because of the hilly region, more cloud and variety of plants, it is very difficult to estimate the rice yield. With the launching of TERRA, Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), with abundant information, quickly acquiring data and wide range of coverage, is new data for estimation of rice yield. This study considered the characteristics of rice planting, and the digital slope image derived from the digital elevation model map and multitemporal MODIS were used for the purpose of improving the classification accuracy of MODIS in large hilly region. The results show that the slope and mutitemporal MODIS image can improve the accuracy of estimation of rice area in comparison with only one MODIS image.