A preliminary study of phenological growth stages of wetland rice using ERS1/2 SAR data

This paper investigates the suitability of use of spaceborne multi-date SAR images (ERS 1/2) for monitoring of growth stages of wetland paddy crops. Four study sites are selected in the Kedah State, Malaysia, which produces 39% of total paddy output in the country. The period of study is from April to September 1996, which covers the first cropping in the year. Groundtruth measurements on soil and paddy plants are conducted around the days of data acquisition. In general, the phenological growth stages of wetland rice can be classified into five main stages: soil preparation, germination, vegetative, ripening and harvest. Preliminary results indicate that space-borne radar imagery has a great potential for delineation and monitoring different growth stages of wetland rice