Mapping sugarcane plantation dynamics in Guangxi, China, by time series Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Landsat images

Sugarcane is a major crop for sugar and ethanol production and its area has increased substantially in tropical and subtropical regions in recent decades. Updated and accurate sugarcane maps are critical for monitoring sugarcane area and production and assessing its impacts on the society, economy and the environment. To date, no sugarcane mapping tools are available to generate annual maps of sugarcane at the field scale over large regions. In this study, we developed a pixel- and phenology-based mapping tool to produce an annual map of sugarcane at 10-m spatial resolution by analyzing time-series Landsat-7/8, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 images (LC/S2/S1) during August 31, 2017 - July 1, 2019 in Guangxi province, China, which accounts for 65% of sugarcane production of China. First, we generated annual maps of croplands and other land cover types in 2018. Second, we delineated the cropping intensity (single, double and triple cropping in a year) for all cropland pixels in 2018. Third, we identified sugarcane fields in 2018 based on its phenological characteristics. The resultant 2018 sugarcane map has producer, user and overall accuracies of 88%, 96% and 96%, respectively. According to the annual sugarcane map in 2018, there was a total of 8940 km² sugarcane in Guangxi, which was ~1% higher than the estimate from the Guangxi Agricultural Statistics Report. Finally, we identified green-up dates of those sugarcane fields in 2019, which could be used to support the sugarcane planting and management activities. Our study demonstrates the potential of the pixel- and phenology-based sugarcane mapping tool (both the algorithms and the LC/S2/S1 time series images) in identifying croplands, cropping intensity and sugarcane fields in the complex landscapes with diverse crop types, fragmented crop fields and frequent cloudy weather. The resultant annual maps from this study could be used to assist farms and sugarcane mills for sustainable sugarcane production and environment.