Identification of Rice Fields in the Lombardy Region of Italy Based on Time Series of Sentinel-1 Data

Probably a consequence of the unbalance between rice production in Asia and in Europe, satellite-based rice identification in Asia is widely discussed in scientific literature whereas SAR-based mapping of European rice paddy field has received less attention so far. In this paper, we propose a simple methodology for identifying European rice paddy fields from time series of SAR data. Standard practices for management of water in conventional European rice paddy fields translates into a distinctive pattern of low backscatter values between April and May, typically preceded and followed by higher backscatter values due to ploughing and emergence. Our proposed method leverages such pattern to discriminate rice against other crops and in a test involving the entire Italian rice-producing region of Lombardy has achieved very good Overall Accuracy (OA) scores. This paper reports the method, our test results and draws some preliminary conclusions.