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Monitoring Abandoned Agriculture, Fallow Fields, and Grasslands with Landsat and Sentinel-2
Project Start Date
01/15/2018
Project End Date
01/14/2023
Grant Number
80NSSC18K0343
Solicitation
default

Team Members:

Person Name Person role on project Affiliation
Volker Radeloff Principal Investigator University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, US
He Yin Postdoc Researcher Kent State University, Kent, USA
Patrick Griffiths Collaborator Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, DE
Patrick Hostert Collaborator Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Sarah Marcotte Other The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, Madison, US
Abstract

Abandoned agriculture is widespread, has major environmental consequences, and is an important land use change process. Indeed, the interface of abandoned versus active agriculture is often where rapid land use change takes place. However, monitoring abandoned agriculture with satellite data is difficult, and it is easily confused with fallow fields, and grasslands. Monitoring abandoned agriculture is now possible though thanks to more frequent satellite observations that capture phenology at medium resolution. Our main goal is to monitor abandoned agriculture, fallow fields, and grasslands with combined satellite images from Landsat and Sentinel-2. Our objectives are: 1) Analyze Landsat and Sentinel-2 data from single years to classify active agriculture, hayfields, and both non-woody and woody herbaceous cover; 2) analyze Landsat data from multiple years to classify a) non-woody herbaceous cover into non-woody abandoned agriculture, fallow fields, and grasslands, b) woody herbaceous cover into woody abandoned agriculture and permanent grasslands, and c) active agriculture in permanent agriculture and areas that were re-cultivated; 3) conduct a rigorous accuracy assessment and uncertainty analyses, and evaluate the robustness of the developed algorithms and their potential for operational use in the future, and 4) explore the effects of a) temperature data from TIRS, b) texture information, and c) fire detection on the mapping accuracy of abandoned agriculture. We will analyze Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 data after 2013, and Landsat Collection 1 data from 1983-2012. For each year after 2013, we will derive metrics from the full phenology curve, and from a spectral mixture analysis to capture green vegetation, nonphotosynthetically active vegetation, soils, and shade. Prior to 2013, we will analyze 3-5 year bins. We will test our approach globally in ten areas where we have worked before, and that capture a wide range of environmental conditions, ranging from drylands, to temperate regions, to the wet tropics, and all three major causes for abandonment, i.e., economic, political, and environmental degradation. In addition, we will analyze 345 Landsat footprints in a regional analysis across Eastern Europe, where abandonment is widespread. In addition to these research objectives, we will train one graduate student and one postdoc in remote sensing and land use science, publish at least seven journal articles, analyze data from several NASA assets to answer important scientific questions, and strengthen collaborations between scientists in the U.S. and Europe, to foster the integrated analysis of satellite data from American and European satellite missions. Our proposed work to develop algorithms and prototype products, and to analyze combined Landsat and Sentinel-2 data, to monitor abandoned agriculture, fallow fields, and grasslands, is directly relevant to the scope of the solicitation, the goals of the NASA-LCLUC program, and NASA’s mission, and it will make an important contribution to the routine monitoring of land use and land cover change globally.

Project Research Area

Project Documents

Year Authors Type Title
2022 Katarzyna Lewinska Johanna Buchner Publications Lewinska, K.E., Buchner, J., Bleyhl, B., Hostert, P., Yin, H., Kuemmerle, T., Radeloff, V.C. 2021. Changes in the grasslands of the Caucasus based on Cumulative Endmember Fractions from the full 1987–2019 Landsat record. Science of Remote Sensing 4 (2021) 100035.
2022 Volker Radeloff Publications Crawford, C. L., H. Yin, V. C. Radeloff, and D. S. Wilcove. 2022. Rural land abandonment is too ephemeral to provide major benefits for biodiversity and climate. Science Advances, 8: eabm8999. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm8999
2022 Volker Radeloff Publications Buchner, J., V. Butsic, H. Yin, T. Kuemmerle, M. Baumann, N. Zazanashvili, J. Stapp, and V. C. Radeloff. 2022. Localized versus wide-ranging effects of the post-Soviet wars in the Caucasus on agricultural abandonment. Global Environmental Change, 76: 102580. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378022001182
2022 Volker Radeloff Publications Affek, A. N., Z. Jabs-Sobocińska, J. Wolski, and V. C. Radeloff. 2023. Pockets of persistence of agricultural land use during the socioeconomic shock of forced post-WWII displacements in the Carpathians. Land Use Policy, 131: 106678. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837723001448?dgcid=coauthor#ack0005
2022 He Yin Volker Radeloff Publications Crawford C.L., Yin H. Radeloff V. C. , Wilcove D.S. , Rural land abandonment is too ephemeral to provide major benefits for biodiversity and climate, Science Advances, volume 8, 10.1126/sciadv.abm8999, https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.abm8999
2021 Publications Affek, A. N., J. Wolski, M. Zachwatowicz, K. Ostafin, and V. C. Radeloff. Effects of post-WWII forced displacements on long-term landscape dynamics in the Polish Carpathians. Landscape and Urban Planning, 214: 104164.
2020 Volker Radeloff NASA LCLUC Science Team Presentation Monitoring Abandoned Agriculture, Fallow Fields and Grasslands (2020)
2020 Publications Rendenieks, Z., M. D. Nita, O. Nikodemus, and V. C. Radeloff. 2020. Half a century of forest cover change along the Latvian-Russian border captured by Corona and Landsat images. Remote Sensing of Environment, 249: 112010.
2020 He Yin Volker Radeloff Publications Yin, H., A. Brandão, J. Buchner, D. Helmers, B. G. Iuliano, N. E. Kimambo, K. E. Lewińska, E. Razenkova, A. Rizayeva, N. Rogova, S. A. Spawn, Y, H, Xie, and V. C. Radeloff. 2020. Monitoring cropland abandonment with Landsat time series. Remote Sensing of Environment, 246: 111873.
2019 Volker Radeloff NASA LCLUC Science Team Presentation Monitoring Abandoned Agriculture, Fallow Fields and Grasslands
2018 He Yin Alexander Prishchepov Publications Yin, H., A. V. Prishchepov, T. Kuemmerle, B. Bleyhl, J. Buchner, and V. C. Radeloff. 2018. Mapping agricultural land abandonment from spatial and temporal segmentation of Landsat time series. Remote Sensing of Environment, 210: 12-24.