Integration of RADARSAT-2 ScanSAR and AWiFS for operational agricultural land use monitoring over the Canadian prairies

Agriculture plays an important role in the global economy, and sustainability of this sector is critical for world food security. Annual information on agricultural land use (crop inventory) would permit efficient and effective delivery of agricultural programs that support sustainability of this resource. Previous research has revealed encouraging results on using space borne satellite data (Landsat, SPOT) for crop mapping at the regional scale. Given Canada´s large land mass, for operational crop monitoring satellite data with a wide swath and moderate spatial resolution are needed. This study presents the results on integrating RADARSAT-2 ScanSAR data with AWiFS data to improve crop identification. This study demonstrates that multi-temporal AWiFS data can produce an adequate crop classification, with an overall accuracy of 83%. The addition of ScanSAR data increases the overall classification accuracies. The radar contribution is most pronounced during the earlier season.