Use of Linear Spectral Mixture Model to Estimate Rice Planted Area Based on MODIS Data

MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) is a key instrument aboard the Terra (EOS AM) and Aqua (EOS PM) satellites. Linear spectral mixture models are applied to MOIDS data for the sub-pixel classification of land covers. Shaoxing county of Zhejiang Province in China was chosen to be the study site and early rice was selected as the study crop. The derived proportions of land covers from MODIS pixel using linear spectral mixture models were compared with unsupervised classification derived from TM data acquired on the same day, which implies that MODIS data could be used as satellite data source for rice cultivation area estimation, possibly rice growth monitoring and yield forecasting on the regional scale.