June 2009 Wye City Group 1 Use of remote sensing in combination with statistical survey methods in the production of agricultural, land use and other statistics Current applications and future possibilities Jeffrey Smith, Agriculture Division, Statistics Canada Frédéric Bédard, Agriculture Division, Statistics Canada Richard Dobbins, Agriculture Division, Statistics Canada June 11, 2009

June 2009 Wye City Group 2 Outline  Introduction  Prince Edward Island Potato/Agricultural Land Area Estimate and Classification System (PACS) Approach Results Discussion  Other Possible Uses for this Type of Methodology  Thoughts on Use in Developing Countries

June 2009 Wye City Group 3 Introduction PEI

June 2009 Wye City Group 4 Introduction  PEI Department of Agriculture asked for a study on improving Estimates of potato area Estimates of total agricultural land Land cover/use classification for the whole province  Why potatoes in particular? PEI total FCR 1 in 2008:$390.3 million PEI crop FCR in 2008:$242.0 million PEI potato FCR in 2008:$200.9 million 1 Farm Cash Receipts  Project conducted in 2006, 2007, 2008

June 2009 Wye City Group 5 PACS – Approach - Overview  Key Success Criteria Precision Objectivity Timeliness  Statistical Component Entire Island delineated with small “cells” Stratified sample design Estimation and statistical quality assurance  Phase A – preliminary estimates Ground truth data collection by roadside and aerial observation Area and precision estimates for potatoes and total agriculture land  Phase B - land-cover/crop classification Province-wide land-cover/crop classification from analysis of satellite images (map in GIS format) Improved area and precision estimate at province level for potatoes

June 2009 Wye City Group 6 PACS - Approach – Sample design

June 2009 Wye City Group 7 PACS - Approach – Selected cells

June 2009 Wye City Group 8 PACS – Approach – Ground collection

June 2009 Wye City Group 9 PACS – Approach – Satellite imagery SPOT 4 SPOT 5 LANDSAT 5

June 2009 Wye City Group 10 PACS - Approach – Image acquisition SPRING 2008 IMAGES SUMMER 2008 IMAGES

June 2009 Wye City Group 11 PACS - Approach - Regions

June 2009 Wye City Group 12 PACS - Approach – Raw and classified

June 2009 Wye City Group 13 PACS – Approach – Regression estimation

June 2009 Wye City Group 14 PACS – Results – Classification map

June 2009 Wye City Group 15 PACS - Results – Area estimates

June 2009 Wye City Group 16 PACS - Results – Accuracy matrix

June 2009 Wye City Group 17 PACS - Results – Potato area estimates

June 2009 Wye City Group 18 Discussion  Potato area estimates very much improved in precision and available earlier  Classification accuracy reasonably good, but somewhat hampered by cloud in some regions in some years  Evolving the design of the ground truth data phase helped to improve the results

June 2009 Wye City Group 19 Other Possible Uses  Other geographical areas  Measure or monitor environmental practices Crop rotation Buffer zones Shelterbelts  Urban or settled area studies

June 2009 Wye City Group 20 Other Possible Uses - Charlottetown

June 2009 Wye City Group 21 Other Possible Uses - Summerside

June 2009 Wye City Group 22 Other Possible Uses

June 2009 Wye City Group 23 Other Possible Uses – “Settlements” Edmonton: CMA,UA and draft settlement boundaries

June 2009 Wye City Group 24 Other Possible Uses – “Settlements” Edmonton: UA and draft settlement boundaries

June 2009 Wye City Group 25 Other Possible Uses – “Settlements” PopulationArea (km 2 ) Population Density (people per km 2 ) CMA UA Settlement (draft – range depends on rules applied) to to to Edmonton Population Density Results

June 2009 Wye City Group 26 Thoughts on Use in Developing Countries  Does not rely on traditional survey-taking infrastructure  No burden on farmers  Collection of ground truth data is straightforward, fairly fast and not expensive; uses road and air  Satellite imagery is inexpensive and many options available depending on particular requirement  Interpretation expertise available  Overall cost is not excessive  Weather may affect quality, but new sensors should solve this problem (e.g., RADARSAT-2)

June 2009 Wye City Group 27 Questions / Discussion Jeffrey Smith, Assistant Director Agriculture Division, Statistics Canada Jean Talon Building Floor 12 C Tunney's Pasture Driveway, Ottawa ON K1A 0T6 Tel Fax