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Estimation of district-level spring barley yield in southern Sweden using multi-source satellite data and random forest approach

Li, Xueying LU orcid ; Jin, Hongxiao LU ; Eklundh, Lars LU orcid ; Bouras, EI Houssaine ; Olsson, Per-Ola LU ; Cai, Zhanzhang LU ; Ardö, Jonas LU orcid and Duan, Zheng LU (2024) In International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 134(104183).
Abstract
Remote sensing observations and artificial intelligence algorithms have emerged as key components for crop yield estimation at various scales during the past decades. However, the utilization of multi-source satellite data and machine learning for estimating aggregated crop yield at the regional level in Europe has been only scarcely explored. Our study aims to bridge this research gap by focusing on the district-level spring barley yield estimation in southern Sweden from 2017 to 2022. We developed an estimation method with the random forest (RF) approach using four satellite-derived products along with two climate variables. These variables were used individually and in combinations as inputs for the RF approach. The results showed that... (More)
Remote sensing observations and artificial intelligence algorithms have emerged as key components for crop yield estimation at various scales during the past decades. However, the utilization of multi-source satellite data and machine learning for estimating aggregated crop yield at the regional level in Europe has been only scarcely explored. Our study aims to bridge this research gap by focusing on the district-level spring barley yield estimation in southern Sweden from 2017 to 2022. We developed an estimation method with the random forest (RF) approach using four satellite-derived products along with two climate variables. These variables were used individually and in combinations as inputs for the RF approach. The results showed that vegetation indices (VIs) outperformed solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) in barley yield estimation, while combining VIs and SIF variables achieved the highest model performance (R2 = 0.77, RMSE = 488 kg/ha). The inclusion of climate variables generally had little added contributions to the model performance. Importantly, barley yield prediction could be achieved two months prior to harvest, using monthly VIs and SIF data from April and May. Our study demonstrated the feasibility of using freely accessible satellite data and the machine learning approach for estimating crop yield at the pan-European regional level. We expect that our proposed methodology can be extended to different crop types and regional-scale crop yield estimation in Europe, benefiting national and local authorities in making agricultural productivity decisions. (Less)
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author
; ; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Crop yield, Sentinel-2, Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence, Machine learning, remote sensing
in
International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation
volume
134
issue
104183
publisher
Elsevier
ISSN
1569-8432
DOI
10.1016/j.jag.2024.104183
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
b671dc18-e1bf-43dc-b7b8-60ab843e9e01
date added to LUP
2024-10-01 15:23:05
date last changed
2024-10-04 11:45:29
@article{b671dc18-e1bf-43dc-b7b8-60ab843e9e01,
  abstract     = {{Remote sensing observations and artificial intelligence algorithms have emerged as key components for crop yield estimation at various scales during the past decades. However, the utilization of multi-source satellite data and machine learning for estimating aggregated crop yield at the regional level in Europe has been only scarcely explored. Our study aims to bridge this research gap by focusing on the district-level spring barley yield estimation in southern Sweden from 2017 to 2022. We developed an estimation method with the random forest (RF) approach using four satellite-derived products along with two climate variables. These variables were used individually and in combinations as inputs for the RF approach. The results showed that vegetation indices (VIs) outperformed solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) in barley yield estimation, while combining VIs and SIF variables achieved the highest model performance (R2 = 0.77, RMSE = 488 kg/ha). The inclusion of climate variables generally had little added contributions to the model performance. Importantly, barley yield prediction could be achieved two months prior to harvest, using monthly VIs and SIF data from April and May. Our study demonstrated the feasibility of using freely accessible satellite data and the machine learning approach for estimating crop yield at the pan-European regional level. We expect that our proposed methodology can be extended to different crop types and regional-scale crop yield estimation in Europe, benefiting national and local authorities in making agricultural productivity decisions.}},
  author       = {{Li, Xueying and Jin, Hongxiao and Eklundh, Lars and Bouras, EI Houssaine and Olsson, Per-Ola and Cai, Zhanzhang and Ardö, Jonas and Duan, Zheng}},
  issn         = {{1569-8432}},
  keywords     = {{Crop yield; Sentinel-2; Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence; Machine learning; remote sensing}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{09}},
  number       = {{104183}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation}},
  title        = {{Estimation of district-level spring barley yield in southern Sweden using multi-source satellite data and random forest approach}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2024.104183}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.jag.2024.104183}},
  volume       = {{134}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}