Estimation of Winter Wheat Sown Area Using Temporal Characteristics of NDVI

Agricultural land use generally shows specific temporal characteristics of NDVI obtained from satellite data. In terms of winter wheat, a higher value compared with other land use types in May and a considerably low value in June could be discriminative features of temporal change of NDVI. In this study, the author examined methods for estimating winter wheat sown area in sub-pixel level of coarse resolution satellite data using temporal characteristics of NDVI. Application of the methods to the major grain production area in China exhibited properly a spatial distribution pattern of winter wheat sown area.