Spectral Characteristics and Mapping of Rice Plants Using Multi-Temporal Landsat Data

The visible band of Landsat ETM+ (Band 1, Band 2, and Band 3) showed a weak exponential relationship to rice age; however, the reflective infrared band of Landsat ETM+ (Band 4 and B5) and the entire vegetation index showed a strong exponential relationship to rice age. Rice Growth Vegetation Index (RGVI) developed in this study is the best vegetation index compared to existing vegetation indices. The relationship between rice age and RGVI has shown the highest determination coefficient (R 2 ) of 0.9045. The RGVI then used to develop a model to rice plant mapping. Quantitative comparison of the rice plant area between analysis results and reference data showed a linear relationship, with the equation y = 0.920x - 3.841 and R² = 0.971, where y is the rice plant area of reference data, and x is the rice plant area of the analysis results of the Landsat ETM+. The standard error of this estimation was 43.04 ha.