IAPRS & SIS, Vol.34, Part 7, “Resource and Environmental Monitoring”, Hyderabad, India,2002 
  
  
  
s NOVEL APPROACHES TO USE RS-PRODUCTS 
FOR MAPPING AND STUDYING AGRICULTURAL LAND USE SYTEMS 
Dr. C.A.J.M. de Bie 
ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands; debie@itc.nl 
Commission VII, Working Group VII/2.1 on Sustainable Agriculture, Invited Speaker 
KEYWORDS: Land Use Surveys, Sustainable Agriculture, Crop Calendars, Cropping Patterns, NDVI profiles, Mobile GIS 
ABSTRACT 
This paper deals with novel methods that support production of agricultural land use information as required to provide timely spatial 
information to generate food security policies and that support land use planning studies. Options are discussed that aim at improving 
the quality and efficiency of required geo-spatial information production with special emphasis on agricultural land uses. Attention is 
drawn to use the dynamic aspects of land use systems while mapping land use by using crop calendar and crop pattern information. 
Similarly emphasis is put onto recognizing plots that form the primary unique sample units to survey when collecting agricultural 
land use data. 
Shown is a method (top-down) that allows de-aggregation of available countrywide tabular statistical data on cropped area and crop 
production to 1km pixel crop maps by making use of 1km NDVI profile maps, agro-ecological knowledge, and thematic GIS layers. 
Bottom-up options discussed aim to support land use surveys; they are: merging image analysis results, classify images using crop 
calendar survey data, classify images using NDVI profiles and known crop calendars, surveying using mobile GIS techniques, and 
segmentation of images based on object-oriented analysis. 
Multiple area frame land use surveys at country level use, after stratification and random selection of primary survey units, air 
photographs (AP’s) as guide to sample plots. The novel discussed techniques require further study to replace the costly and laborious 
elements of preparing frames using AP’s while simultaneously improving the survey quality. Use of new high resolution RS-images 
(e.g. Aster of 15m) and multi-temporal NDVI images (of 1km) make the discussed approaches feasible, i.e. to identify individual 
fields directly, to mask natural cover types present, and to differentiate types of cropping patterns followed. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Population growth is leading to increasing demands for food 
and hence claiming more land for food production. This process 
threw many developing countries into a “poverty trap” 
characterized by expansion of agriculture into marginal lands, 
land degradation, declining yields, increasing frequencies of 
crop failures, food shortages, and conflicts between parties with 
different interests in how specific tracts of land are used. 
Drought and floods, possibly associated with climate changes, 
further enhance food supply problems in some areas. 
Programmes or projects that address the stated sustainability 
issues specifically require timely and reliable (spatial) 
information on the productivity and sustainability of current 
agricultural land use systems. However, there is a general 
paucity of land use information in many developing countries 
and it is often difficult for the range of potential clients to access 
the information that is available. Young (1998) refers to the 
described vacuum as: 
“to an extent which, viewed in retrospect, is remarkable, 
methods for the collection and analysis of land use data 
have lagged behind those for natural resource surveys”, 
and 
“he situation with respect to land use classification was 
comparable with that for soils in about 1950: a large 
number of systems devised for national use, with no 
guidelines for comparison", 
whilst: 
“at national level, many countries are now seeking to 
monitor land use change as a basis for policy guidelines 
and action", and *...land use is generally treated as the 
second most fundamental set of statistics, following 
population". 
2. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 
The aim is to contribute to the development of compilation 
methods of spatial and temporal land-use data sets using 
existing data sources and improved GIS-based survey methods 
to subsequently make them available to the public with the help 
of recently developed data-dissemination tools. 
It is envisaged that, among others, these data can be used for 
enhancing a broad range of studies in areas such as early 
warning in relation to food security, yield gap analysis studies, 
regional to global assessment studies, land-use planning, 
disaster mitigation, urban-rural linkages, the monitoring and 
assessment of land/ water degradation, loss of biodiversity and 
ecosystem functions, as well as for project formulation. 
3. METHOD 
Noting: 
the complexity (and back-log) of capturing and managing 
required land use information, 
the shortcoming to review the extent, variability, and 
quality of existing land use data, 
the requirements that properly geo-referenced products 
must soon become available, 
review of various existing land use concepts lead to further 
delays in producing products, 
it is clear that a practical step-wise approach must follow the 
logic from: 
*guick, incomplete, and of limited use', 
to: 
*relatively laborious, flexible, and without limitations regarding 
applicability’.