Paddy rice area estimation using a stratified sampling method with remote sensing in China

It is essential for rice production and trade management to collect objective and timely information on paddy rice planting at a regional and national level. Because of rapid economic development and crop rotation, the distribution of paddy rice planting area has changed dramatically and the area of paddy rice planting has decreased. In this study, an operational method was developed to monitor the inter-annual changes in paddy rice planting areas using stratified sampling method and multi-source remote sensing data in China. With the support of the background database, the population is defined as the total rice growing area, the sampling unit is designed with a 1∶50000 scale topographic map. The information for the sampling unit was collected by multi-source remote sensing survey and ground truth data collection. The total paddy rice planting area was estimated at a precision and confidence level. The method is being applied in main crop area estimation system in the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture.