Early estimation of sugarcane area of Uttar Pradesh using remote sensing and ground truth

Abstract

Uttar Pradesh contributes largest acreage of sugarcane (more than 40 per cent) to the national crop acreage; hence an early estimate of the crop acreage becomes paramount importance which was done using AWiFS data. Multi-date data of Resourcesat-2 AWiFS from February to November 2012 and January to November, 2013 for the 27 districts of Uttar Pradesh (U.P) was used to develop the procedure for early estimation of sugarcane acreage. The districts selected were having an area greater than 10 thousand ha and contribute 98.7 per cent of the state sugarcane acreage. The ground truth was collected during July/August and October 2012-13.The classification accuracy vis-a-vis critical data set requirement and identification of ratoon and freshly planted crop was also attempted. Early estimation of sugarcane acreage during month of June can be made possible by using multi-date AWiFS data upto May in case of Uttar Pradesh. The estimated acreage was 18.1 lakh ha which were 30 per cent underestimated in comparison to crop acreage estimation using data upto Nov. 3, 2012 which was 26.1 lakh ha. The error in early estimation of the crops was reduced by about 50 per cent as the estimated crop acreage during May was19.5 lakh ha whereas using AWiFS data upto Nov. 3, 2013 was 22.6 lakh ha. Therefore, on the basis of model output for two years, early estimation in June showed under estimation of 22 percent compared to final estimate in November.