Estimating Rice Cropping Area and Analyzing Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Jiangsu Province Using Multispectral...

Area of Science:

• Agricultural Science
• Environmental Science
• Remote Sensing
• Machine Learning

Background:

• Climate change and population growth pose significant threats to global food security.
• Understanding changes in single-season rice (SSR) cultivation area is critical for maintaining rice distribution and ensuring food security.

Purpose of the Study:

• To estimate the SSR cropping pattern and its area changes in Jiangsu Province from 2018 to 2023.
• To evaluate the influence of environmental factors like NDVI, LST, and LULC on SSR area variations.
• To assess the impact of urbanization and climate change on agricultural land use.

Main Methods:

• Utilized ground-truthing data (1700 rice, 470 non-rice points) collected in Jiangsu Province.
• Employed remote sensing (RS) techniques and machine learning (ML), specifically the random forest (RF) model, via Google Earth Engine (GEE).
• Analyzed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Land Surface Temperature (LST), and Land Use-Land Cover (LULC) variations over the study period.

Main Results:

• NDVI showed an increasing trend (0.30 in 2018 to 0.42 in 2023), while LST peaked in 2020 (14.4 °C) and 2022 (14.1 °C).
• SSR area significantly changed, with a total reduction of 0.92% from 2018-2023, primarily in eastern and southern Jiangsu.
• Crop area decreased by 4.13%, with significant conversion to built-up and water body areas (2.75% variation from 2020-2023).

Conclusions:

• The single-season rice cropping pattern and total cropland area have declined in Jiangsu Province during the study period.
• Urbanization and climate change are key drivers of agricultural land loss, impacting crop cultivation.
• Adaptive strategies are crucial for Jiangsu Province to maintain food security amidst environmental challenges.