Detecting functional field units from satellite images in smallholder farming systems using a deep learning based computer vision approach: a case study from Bangladesh

Improving agricultural productivity of smallholder farms (which are typically less than 2 ha) is key to food security for millions of people in developing nations. Knowledge of the size and location of crop fields forms the basis for crop statistics, yield forecasting, resource allocation, economic...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Ruoyu Yang, Ahmed, Z., Schulthess, U., Kamal, M., Rai, R.
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:México
Recursos:Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo
Repositorio:Repositorio Institucional de Publicaciones Multimedia del CIMMYT
OAI Identifier:oai:repository.cimmyt.org:10883/20982
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/10883/20982
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
Field Boundaries
Smallholder Farming
Deep Learning
Convolutional Neural Networks
FIELDS
BOUNDARIES
SMALLHOLDERS
MACHINE LEARNING
NEURAL NETWORKS
Descrição
Resumo:Improving agricultural productivity of smallholder farms (which are typically less than 2 ha) is key to food security for millions of people in developing nations. Knowledge of the size and location of crop fields forms the basis for crop statistics, yield forecasting, resource allocation, economic planning, and for monitoring the effectiveness of development interventions and investments. We evaluated three different full convolutional neural network (F–CNN) models (U-Net, SegNet, and DenseNet) with deep neural architecture to detect functional field boundaries from the very high resolution (VHR) WorldView-3 satellite imagery from Southern Bangladesh. The precision of the three F–CNN was up to 0.8, and among the three F–CNN models, the highest precision, recalls, and F-1 score was obtained using a DenseNet model. This architecture provided the highest area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) when tested with independent images. We also found that 4-channel images (blue, green, red, and near-infrared) provided small gains in performance when compared to 3-channel images (blue, green, and red). Our results indicate the potential of using CNN based computer vision techniques to detect field boundaries of small, irregularly shaped agricultural fields.