The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Sciences 25 (2022) 147–156

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Crop-type mapping and acreage estimation in smallholding plots using

Sentinel-2 images and machine learning algorithms: Some
comparisons q
Manas Hudait, Priyank Pravin Patel ⇑
Department of Geography, Presidency University, Kolkata. India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Crop acreage analysis and yield estimation are of prime importance in field-level agricultural monitoring
Received 5 September 2021 and management. This enables prudent decision making during any crop failure event and for ensuing
Revised 25 November 2021 crop insurance. The free availability of the high resolution Sentinel-2 satellite datasets has created new
Accepted 16 January 2022
possibilities for mapping and monitoring agricultural lands in this regard. In the present study conducted
Available online 28 January 2022
on the Tamluk Subdivision of the Purba Medinipur District of West Bengal, the heterogeneous crop area
was mapped according to the respective crop type, using Sentinel-2 multi-spectral images and two
Keywords:
machine learning algorithms- K Nearest Neighbour (KNN) and Random Forest (RF). Plot-level field infor-
Machine learning algorithms
Smallholder agriculture
mation was collected from different cropland types to frame the training and validation datasets (com-
Crop acreage prising 70% and 30% of the total dataset, respectively) for cropland classification and accuracy
Betel vine cultivation assessment. Through this, the major summer crop acreage was identified (Boro rice, vegetables and betel
vine- the three main crops in the study area). The extracted maps had an overall accuracy of 97.16% and
97.22%, respectively, in the KNN and RF classifications, with respective Kappa index values of 95.99% and
96.08%, and the RF method proved to be more accurate. This study was particularly useful in mapping the
betel leaf acreage herein since scant information exists for this crop and it is cultivated by many small-
holder farmers in the region. The methods used in this paper can be readily applied elsewhere for accu-
rately enumerating the respective crop acreages.
Ó 2022 National Authority of Remote Sensing & Space Science. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open
access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
Accurate mapping of smallholding agricultural plots is complex
due to the diversity of smallholder farming systems, constrained
plot size, crop heterogeneity and the lack of clearly defined,
updated field boundaries in most land management systems (Liu
et al., 2020). However, such mapping remains the foremost step
towards monitoring smallholder1 cultivators’ farms, their operation
and crop acreage spatial distribution (Hudait and Patel, 2018). This is
Peer review under responsibility of National Authority for Remote Sensing and
Space Sciences.
⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Geography, Presidency University, 86/
1, College Street, Kolkata 700 073, West Bengal, India.
E-mail addresses: manas.rs@presiuniv.ac.in (M. Hudait), priyank.geog@presiu-
niv.ac.in (P.P. Patel).
1
As per the Agricultural Census of India (Phase-I of 2015–16), small/smallholding
farmers own 1–2 ha (0.01–0.02 sq.km) of land, marginal farmers (<0.5 to 1.0 ha) (or
<0.005 to 0.01 sq.km), semi-medium farmers (2–4 ha) (or 0.02–0.04 sq.km), medium
farmers (4–10 ha) (or 0.04–0.1 sq.km) and large farmers (10 to >20 ha) (or 0.1 to >0.2
sq.km).
even more pertinent in the Indian agricultural scenario, since small
and marginal farmers together cultivate about 86% of all operational
landholdings in the country (MoAFW, 2019) and improving their
economic status can help meet various sustainable development
goals (Abraham and Pingali, 2020). The growing demand for crop
insurance as part of micro-level agricultural planning, which
requires plot-level crop statistics, acreage and yield estimation at
the Tehsil/Block-level, has also augmented the need for such maps.
However, conducting crop surveys in the field or making estimates
based on interpolation of older/sampled information, is time-
consuming, expensive and erroneous.
Advancements in remote sensing now provide accurate, recur-
ring and timely estimations of crop acreages and yields for effec-
tively supporting agricultural decision support systems (Verhulp
and Van Niekerk, 2016). While earlier, it was challenging to differ-
entiate smallholding plots from medium/coarser images (e.g. from
30 m Landsat or 23.5 m LISS-III images- Liu et al., 2020), the
Sentinel-2 dataset enables this, due to its large number of bands
and higher spectral and spatial resolution (13 spectral bands of
10–60 m resolution), especially the inclusion of a red-edge band

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrs.2022.01.004
1110-9823/Ó 2022 National Authority of Remote Sensing & Space Science. Published by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
M. Hudait and Priyank Pravin Patel
for vegetation analysis (Saini and Ghosh, 2018). In addition, its
weekly availability allows change detection in near real-time
(ESA 2016). These images have thus been much used for crop
area/type delineation and yield prediction (Noi and Kappas,
2018; Saini and Ghosh, 2018; Neetu and Ray, 2019).
Such precision techniques can help analyse the acreage and
yield of high value commercial crops grown in large plantations
(e.g. tea/coffee) or within small individual sheds (e.g. betel vine).
For example, due to their distinctive field alignment or specific cul-
tivation sheds, betel vine plots can be demarcated discretely from
high resolution images (Hudait and Patel, 2018). This is crucial,
since agricultural statistics are usually recorded only for the major
crops in a region and can under-report the coverage of such high-
value smallholding commercial crops.
Manual supervised classification of high resolution images is
often error-prone due to the diversity of objects and varying image
tones/textures. The development of machine learning algorithms
(MLAs) has facilitated auto-extraction of different land use and
land cover (LULC) attributes. Two of the most common MLAs used
are the K-means classifier and Random Forest methods (Noi and
Kappas, 2018), which are more accurate than manual supervised
methods (Neetu and Ray, 2019).
Here, we test the applicability of using Sentinel-2 images and
MLAs for distinctly mapping the major food and commercial crops’
acreages in a part of eastern India. We chose this area, as it lies in a
zone of intensive agriculture, wherein croplands are divided into
numerous smallholding plots. It also contains a good mixture of
different LULC categories and has notable extents under both food
(usually paddy) and cash crops (mostly betel vine). While paddy is
cultivated in open fields, betel vine is grown in distinctive rectan-
gular thatched sheds called Boroj (Hudait and Patel, 2018), distin-
guished by their tonal and textural properties. The area also has
several large aquaculture ponds, converted from former fields,
and these should also be extractable from the images.
2. Study area
Purba Medinipur District is situated in the southern part of
West Bengal. Tamluk Subdivision (Fig. 1), the study area, lies in
the northern part of the district. It is comprised of Kolaghat, Sahid
Matangini, Panskura, Tamluk, Moyna, Nandakumar and Chandipur
C.D. Blocks. As part of the Gangetic delta’s paddy belt, Tamluk Sub-
division is also famous for its betel leaf crop (ICAR, 1997), regularly
leading its production and sale in this region (Development and
Planning Department, GoWB, 2011).
3. Materials and methods
3.1. Creating the training and testing datasets
Fig. 2 outlines the workflow undertaken. Field-based ground-
truthing was done using ground control points (GCPs) obtained
with a handheld GPS. In all, 30 GCPs were collected from each LULC
class (e.g. paddy fields, vegetable patches, betel vine plots and bar-
ren, gullied or excavated lands) and marked in Google Earth (see
Fig. S1 in the Supplementary Information file). The Google Earth
image dates varied between February 2019 to March 2020, just
before the survey period. A total of 920 points were generated ran-
domly in this way, which comprised the training and test datasets
for accuracy assessment of the MLA-based classifications. All the
present LULC types were represented in these datasets. The paddy
fields exhibited smooth texture and clear boundaries. Betel vine
Boroj/sheds had clear geometric structure (along with a raised
form) and lighter tones. Vegetable growing tracts appeared as
clean patches while aquaculture ponds (or their dry remnants)
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Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 25 (2022) 147–156
had distinct boundaries and bluish/grey tones. Natural vegetation
(tree groves) had a rough texture and built-up areas, rivers and
other waterbodies were also clearly identifiable based on their
respective tone/texture and associative elements (Zhou, 2019).
The entire dataset was split into training and testing portions, in
a 70:30 ratio (Fig. 3).
3.2. Image datasets
Multi-temporal and multi-spectral Sentinel-2 images were used
to extract LULC classes and map extents under different crop types,
particularly smallholder plots, which require higher spatial resolu-
tion data (10 m) for accurate delineation. Sentinel-2 images have
five near-infrared (NIR) and three red-edge bands that enhance
its vegetation mapping capabilities (ESA, 2016). Here, 10 of the
13 spectral bands (for the list of scenes see Table S1 in Supplemen-
tary Information file) were used for LULC classification and extrac-
tion of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). All
bands were resampled to 10 m resolution for this (following
Immitzer et al., 2016).
3.3. Separability analysis for band selection
Measures of spectral signature separability enable diverse LULC
classes to be discretized and delineated explicitly in a spectrally
heterogeneous area (Verhulp and Van Niekerk, 2016). Here, spec-
tral separability (Fig. S2) was used to discern which bands best rep-
resented distinctions between the various ground-truthed feature
classes extracted earlier and accordingly, the 10 m spatial resolu-
tion bands (B2, B3, B4, B8) and the 20 m spatial resolution bands
(B5, B6, B7, B8A, B11, B12) were used in the classification processes
for ascertaining the respective crop extents more accurately.
3.4. Multiple time windows and NDVI analysis
Although the spectral nature of the different agricultural fields
is quite similar except for betel vine plantations (as it is grown
inside a constructed shed or Boroj), their respective phenological
differences can help in identifying the specific time windows dur-
ing which sufficient spectral differences arise between different
crops, thereby allowing their plots to be distinguished. Here, we
have enumerated the summer crop acreage (these are the main
crops grown here and have the highest net sown area, as per the
Agriculture Evaluation Office, Tamluk), during which season Boro
rice is the dominant crop while vegetables and betel vines also
have substantial acreage. The multi-temporal Sentinel-2 images
of the months leading up to summer were examined, based on
prior knowledge of the local crop calendar, as regards when the
summer rice sowing and growing occurs. From these, the NDVI
(Eq. (1)) was extracted to detect the occurring phenological
changes for different crops and their variations in different
locations.
qNIR  qRED
NDVI ¼ ð1Þ
qNIR þ qRED
where, qNIR and qRED are the reflectance in the NIR and Red bands,
respectively.
As per this area’s crop calendar, summer rice (Boro rice) is sown
in January and harvested between late April to mid-May (Mandal,
2017). Since, most summer crops are sown in winter (except betel
vine, which is a standing plantation with some leaves being period-
ically harvested from each plant), we considered image dates from
December 2019 to April 2020 for the multiple time window-wise
NDVI analysis (Fig. 4) to detect the successive crop phenological
changes. Based on the training dataset signatures, the respective
M. Hudait and Priyank Pravin Patel Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 25 (2022) 147–156

Fig. 1. Location map of the study area.

Fig. 2. Flowchart of the workflow.

mean NDVI value of the various crops (considering all their patches
in a particular scene) were extracted. The mean NDVI of rice was
maximum in March, although the overall NDVI was highest in
April. Pertinently, the mean NDVI of different crops varied mark-
edly in the March dataset (Fig. 5), which eased the feature class
separation. Thus, the image of 10.03.2020 was selected for classifi-
cation and crop acreage/extent extraction. This temporal NDVI
analysis helped us identify the mean difference between the crops
over a season, using the collected GCPs and the associated spectral
signature of crop locations in the successive images. This is possi-

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M. Hudait and Priyank Pravin Patel
Fig. 3. GCPs taken on the different LULC classes- (a) Training dataset, (b) Testing dataset. Note: LULC legend codes: 1- Rice, 2- Betel vine, 3- Vegetables and Other crops, 4-
Aquaculture, 5- Natural vegetation/Tree groves, 6- Built-up areas and Roads, 7- Other waterbodies, 8- Rivers, 9- Other LULC classes.
bly a quite innovative approach for discerning the different crop
types grown together/alongside in an area.
3.5. Image classification
3.5.1. K-nearest neighbour classifier
The K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN) MLA is a non-parametric
method (Guo et al., 2018), recognizing the dataset’s occurring pat-
tern. The data point category is determined by the existing classi-
fication of the nearest K neighbour (Guo et al., 2018), wherein the K
sample group closest to the unknown sample is used to classify it,
determining the classifier performance (Wei et al., 2017). Then, the
K value is determined by a bootstrap procedure (Noi and Kappas,
2018). Here, we set the default model parameters and evaluated
the K values from 1 to 10, for choosing the best possible value
for the following classification, with a K value of 7 giving the best
results.
3.5.2. Random Forest classifier
The Random Forest (RF) (Breiman, 2001) is an ensemble and
non-parametric algorithm that has been much used for crop classi-
fication and yield prediction (Tatsumi et al., 2016; Neetu and Ray,
2019). The ensemble method of the random forest consists of sev-
eral classifiers operating together to obtain the final prediction via
a majority voting norm (Saini and Ghosh, 2018), with this algo-
rithm selecting a subset of variables at every split randomly
(Liaw and Wiener, 2002). This engenders greater model stability
and accuracy than a single decision tree approach (Immitzer
et al., 2016). Multiple trees are produced based on a bootstrap sam-
ple of the original training data and these are aggregated to pro-
duce one single estimation. An identically distributed
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Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 25 (2022) 147–156
independent vector hk is generated for the kth tree from a known
distribution that is randomly independent of the past vectors but
contains the same distribution and a regression tree is formed
using the hk and the training set, resulting in an ensemble classifier,
as (Eq. 2) (Tatsumi et al., 2016):
h1 (X), h2 (X), ......hk (X) ð2Þ
where, {hk (X) = h (X, hk), k = 1, . . .}, and X = {x1, x2, . . .. . .., xn} [in
which x1, x2, xn are the input vectors]
Two main parameters were set in this model- ‘ntree’ (number of
trees to be grown) and ‘mtry’ (number of features to be used in
each split). We used the default model parameters following
Liaw and Wiener (2002) and Immitzer et al. (2016), and split the
training and testing data in a 70:30 ratio for classification and
validation.
3.5.3. Accuracy assessment
The classification accuracy/classifier performance was judged
from the error matrices provided by the random forest result and
from the overall accuracy and Kappa index [computed after
Rwanga and Ndambuki (2017)], as (Eq. 3):
Pr Pr
i¼1 xii  i¼1 ðxiþ i Þ
N xþ
K¼ 2 P r
ð3Þ
N  i¼1 ðxiþ i Þ xþ
where, r is the total number of rows and columns in the error
matrix, N is the total number of observations, Xii is the observation
in row i and column i, Xi+ is the total of row i and X+i is the total of
column i.
The statistical measures to assess the classification performance
for both the pixel-based and object-based classification include
M. Hudait and Priyank Pravin Patel Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 25 (2022) 147–156

Fig. 4. Extracted NDVI values for the different image dates- (a) 31.12.2019, (b) 25.01.2020, (c) 29.02.2020, (d) 10.03.2020, (e) 19.04.2020.

Fig. 5. The average NDVI values of the three main crop types in the different image datasets.

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M. Hudait and Priyank Pravin Patel Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 25 (2022) 147–156

producer’s accuracy (PA), user’s accuracy (UA), overall accuracy inant crop, covering 34.09% of the study area as per the KNN clas-
(OA) and the Kappa Statistic (Immitzer et al., 2016). The extraction sification output and 32.10% in the RF-based classification
accuracy of the individual LULC classes was also computed through (Table 1). On the other hand, betel vine covered 1.31% and 1.66%
the F score. These different accuracies measures were tabulated to of the area in the KNN and RF classifications, respectively, and
form the error matrix (Xiong et al., 2016) for each MLA, as follows the vegetable patches and others crops’ (potato, groundnut, moog
(Eq. 4–7): and til) plots together comprised 9.45% and 10.23% of the region
in the KNN and RF classifications.
Sd
OA ¼  100 ð4Þ Apart from these, the other important LULC classes identified
n
were aquaculture ponds (covering 22.93% and 22.66% of the area
in the KNN and RF outputs, respectively), natural vegetation/tree
Xii
UA ¼  100 ð5Þ groves (23.98% and 24.03%), built-up tracts and roads (3.39% and
Xi
4.10%), other waterbodies (0.75% and 0.92%), rivers (3.27% and
3.17%) and other LULC classes (0.83% and 1.12%). Aside from the
Xij
PA ¼  100 ð6Þ discerned extents of the three main summer crops, the mapping
Xi
of the aquaculture extents is essential here, even though it is not
a cropland class. Over the last decade, many paddy plots have been
ðUA  PAÞ
F1score ¼ 2  ð7Þ steadily transformed into aquaculture zones, most notably in
ðUA þ PAÞ
Moyna (where the acreage under paddy decreased from 9250 ha
where, Sd is the sum of the correctly classified pixel, n is the sum of to 5000 ha from 2008 to 09 to 22016–17 during which time the
validation pixels, Xij is the observation in the ith row and jth column, extents under aquaculture increased from 1000 ha to 5500 ha-
Xi is the marginal row total of i and Xj is the marginal column total Block Agriculture Office, Moyna Block), Nandakumar and Tamluk.
of j. Mapping this feature can enable tracking of such land use alter-
ation that directly impacts local crop harvests.
Accuracy assessments of the derived LULC outputs (Table S2,
4. Results and discussion
Table S3) revealed the KNN and RF models to have OA values of
97.16% and 97.22%, respectively, and Kappa coefficients of 95.99%
4.1. Crop type classification and accuracy
and 96.08%, with their F1 scores being 74.45% and 75.79%. In each
case, the RF derived classes demonstrated a higher accuracy than
The KNN and RF classifications helped ascertain the location
the KNN based layer. Although the UA and PA values differ for
and extent of each of the different LULC classes and the respective
the different LULC classes in both the KNN and RF classifications,
coverage of the three main crops (Fig. 6, Fig. 7). Rice was the dom-

Fig. 6. Extracted LULC classes- (a) Using KNN Classifier, (b) Using RF Classifier.

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Fig. 7. Coverage of the three main crop types- (a) Extracted using KNN Classifier, (b) Extracted using RF Classifier.

Table 1
Extracted area under the different LULC classes using the two MLAs.

LULC Class KNN Classification RF Classification

Area (ha) Area (sq.km) Percent coverage Area (ha) Area (sq.km) Percent coverage
Rice 37228.1 372.28 34.09 35054.92 350.55 32.10
Betel vine 1430.93 14.31 1.31 1814.11 18.14 1.66
Vegetables and Other Crops 10317.05 103.17 9.45 11172.21 111.72 10.23
Aquaculture 25037.69 250.38 22.93 24745.08 247.45 22.66
Natural vegetation/Tree groves 26189.07 261.89 23.98 26243.27 262.43 24.03
Built-up areas and Roads 3697.24 36.97 3.39 4482.6 44.83 4.10
Other waterbodies 819.46 8.20 0.75 1007.37 10.07 0.92
Rivers 3575.86 35.76 3.27 3457.1 34.57 3.17
Other LULC classes 909.32 90.93 0.83 1228.06 12.28 1.12

Note: 1 ha = 0.01 sq.km.

>90% UA and PA were achieved for the demarcated rice, aquacul-

ture, vegetation and river extents, in both the classifications.
Table 2
However, notable differences between the UA and PA were seen
Accuracy assessment of the individual LULC classes.
for some classes across the KNN and RF-based outputs (e.g. UA for
demarcated betel vine extents is 46.30% in the RF classification but LULC Class F1 Scores (in %)
just 39.29% in the KNN output, while PA for vegetables and other KNN RF
crops’ extents is 65.19% in the RF output but is 58.70% in the Rice 98.71 98.77
KNN-based result). Thus, to evaluate the respective performance Betel vine 28.95 33.33
of the KNN and RF classifications for the different LULC classes, Vegetables and Other Crops 55.85 68.22
we performed the class-specific accuracy assessment for each indi- Aquaculture 97.18 97.22
Natural vegetation/Tree groves 92.54 92.39
vidual constituent using the respective F1 scores (Table 2). Results Built-up areas and Roads 71.22 72.92
show that the river class has the highest accuracy of 99.06% and Other waterbodies 48.87 50.90
99.13% in both the KNN and RF classifications. For rice, the corre- Rivers 99.06 99.13
sponding values were 98.71% and 98.77%, aquaculture (97.18% Other LULC classes 68.17 69.27

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 M. Hudait and Priyank Pravin Patel Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 25 (2022) 147–156

and 97.22%), and natural vegetation (92.54% and 92.39%). Higher

Percent coverage
accuracies were obtained for these classes mainly due to the much
lower intermixing of their pixels with those of other classes,
thereby lessening any misclassification. Comparatively, the betel
vine class has much lower accuracy (28.95% and 33.33%) in both
44.89
7.58
9.93

8.77
4.76
17.01

7.07
RF classification

the KNN and RF classifications, behind that obtained by the water-

bodies class (48.87% and 50.90%), and the vegetables and other
Area (ha)

crops category (55.85% and 68.22%). This occurred due to the smal-
846.53
1109.14
5014.75

531.44
1900.23
980.08

790.04 ler betel vine sheds and the LULC class heterogeneity of their
neighbourhoods, which often contains paddy fields, ponds, kitchen
gardens for vegetables and some built-up spaces.
Percent coverage

While both MLAs had similar overall accuracy, the RF-based

Vegetables and Other Crops

output showed greater precision in denoting betel vine sheds

and vegetable patches. Thus it was better at extracting both the
45.16
16.58
7.72
9.85

8.81
4.96
6.92

larger paddy and smaller betel vine plots and its output can there-
KNN classification

fore be used to produce the crop acreage database of this area. Our
reported accuracies are similar to other such studies done using
Area (ha)
796.54

512.22
713.62
908.88
4658.97
1015.91

1710.91

Sentinel-2 images and KNN and RF MLAs (normal precision levels

between 85 and 95%, e.g. Tatsumi et al., 2016; Noi and Kappas,
2018; Saini and Ghosh, 2018; Neetu and Ray, 2019).
Percent coverage

4.2. Crop acreage estimation

12.92

18.64

18.84
13.39
17.46
8.70

10.05
RF classification

The respective crops’ acreages (Table 3) were calculated from

the produced crop-type map (Fig. 7). Both, the Block-level and
Area (ha)

Gram Panchayat-level acreage under different crops, were

157.83
338.11
182.33
341.86
242.86
316.82
234.3

extracted. Here we discuss just the RF model derived output, as

this had higher precision in the accuracy analysis (we also report
the respective crop acreage for all Panchayats in Tamluk Subdivi-
Percent coverage

sion in Table S4 as well as the extents under aquaculture, as it is

an important economic pursuit herein). Rice had the highest acre-
age of 11319.36 ha (32.29%) in Panskura, followed by in Kolaghat
19.69

15.14
9.55
12.90

11.02
18.30
13.40
KNN classification

(16.78%, 5883.81 ha) and Chandipur (15.58%, 5460.27 ha). The

highest acreage under betel vine was 341.86 ha (18.84%) in Nan-
Block-wise acreage estimation of the main summer crops from the KNN and RF classified LULC outputs.

dakumar. The vegetables and other crops acreage were highest in

Betel vine

Area (ha)

Panskura (i.e. 5014.75 ha, 44.89%).

184.57
136.71
281.71
157.72
261.81

216.61
191.8

As per regulations of the Evaluation Wing, Directorate of Agri-

culture, Government of West Bengal, the data of the year 2020–
21 can only be compiled/released after the completion of the crop-
Percent coverage

ping season in March 2021. As such we cannot directly compare

the image-extracted crop acreage with the latest data, which is
as yet unavailable. However, we present the respective acreage
32.29
16.78
12.45

15.58
8.51
7.71

6.69

of the different crops in each of the studied Blocks from 2015 till
RF classification

2019 (Table 4). This data shows a wide fluctuation in crop acreage
across different years. A comparison of our RF model-based
11319.36
2981.79

5883.81
4362.59
2344.16
2702.94

5460.27
Area (ha)

extracted crop coverage with the government department data

thus does not bring out clear matches, but provides some indica-
tive correlations in the Blocks where the secondary data denotes
the most significant crop production and the RF-model output does
Percent coverage

the same.
When examined at the Gram Panchayat level (Table S4),
marked variations are seen in the coverage of the three crops (in-
32.18
16.65
12.58

15.46
8.51
7.87

6.75
KNN classification

dividually and together) and the aquaculture class. Overall, Moyna

has the greatest proportionate extent under aquaculture, with
70.74% of available lands being earmarked for it. The opposite is
11981.78
3166.73

6196.68
4683.78

5756.86
2930.67
Area (ha)

2511.6

true in Panskura Block, wherein on average, 89% of all lands within

Rice

its Panchayats is used for cultivation. The division of lands between

Note: 1 ha = 0.01 sq.km.

these two activities is most even in Tamluk Block (47.46% for aqua-
culture and 52.54% for cultivation of rice, betel leaf or vegetables
Sahid Matangini

and other crops). In terms of the individual crops, Panskura Block

Nandakumar

Chandipur

has on average the most significant proportion (60.4%) of its lands

Panskura
Kolaghat
Tamluk

Moyna
Blocks

devoted to paddy cultivation, while the highest proportions for

Table 3

betel leaf is found in Nandakumar Block (3.47%) and for vegetables

and other crops again in Panskura Block (26.68%).
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M. Hudait and Priyank Pravin Patel Egypt. J. Remote Sensing Space Sci. 25 (2022) 147–156

Table 4
Year-wise available crop acreage data from published statistics.

Blocks 2015–16 2016–17 2017–18 2018–19

Rice Betel Vegetables and Rice Betel Vegetables and Rice Betel Vegetables and Rice Betel Vegetables and
(ha) vine Other Crops (ha) (ha) vine Other Crops (ha) (ha) vine Other Crops (ha) (ha) vine Other Crops (ha)
(ha) (ha) (ha) (ha)
Tamluk 5448 243 468 6096 142 156 6051 170 270 6879 75 144
Sahid Matangini 4322 149 365 5586 263 171 5659 225 408
3820 223 130
Panskura 15,504 0 1121 4405 0 4286 2569 0 3228 2781 0 3689
Kolaghat 9364 4 696 7153 6 1037 7197 0 3007 9522 0 827
Nandakumar 6280 222 2605 8742 108 180 10,299 136 262 9218 99 217
Moyna 7453 30 711 3913 43 1090 6655 150 697 7998 34 1402
Chandipur 4024 0 2173 1223 0 792 3652 0 690 1312 0 816

Source: Evaluation Wing, Directorate of Agriculture, Government of West Bengal.

Note: 1 ha = 0.01 sq.km.

5. Conclusion Appendix A. Supplementary data

The accurate identification of various seasonal crops at the plot
level is essential for further agricultural development. The present
study discerns the major summer crop types using Sentinel-2 ima-
gery derived multi-temporal NDVI values and two MLAs in Tamluk
Subdivision of West Bengal. The KNN and RF functions used for
LULC extraction provided acceptable precision, with above 90%
overall accuracy, but the RF method outperformed the KNN tech-
nique. Where LULC heterogeneity is high and field plots are quite
small, the results are less accurate. This method provides a cost-
effective yet quite accurate way of estimating the crop acreage
and tracking their growth, with this information being necessary
for both cultivators and agricultural planners. The use of a
temporal-NDVI method to discern which time window/slot is most
suitable to discretize the respective spectral signatures of the dif-
ferent crops cultivated together was also highlighted.
The RF-based image classification satisfactorily extracted the
larger paddy plots and provided robust estimates of the commer-
cially important smaller betel vine shed coverage. This is crucial
as only meagre statistics about the betel vine inventory are avail-
able in secondary databases and regular monitoring of its acreage
and cultivation sites is paramount (Jana, 2016). The study area
has also undergone marked LULC change in recent times (Mondal
et al., 2016), with the growth of aquaculture ponds in erstwhile
paddy tracts. It is thus pertinent to discern the extent of land use
change from such geospatial datasets and analyze why it occurs
together with its effects on the local natural/socioeconomic envi-
ronment. The methods shown can be employed on successive
new image datasets to create a detailed up-to-date crop acreage
inventory for different seasons, which can surely better inform
agricultural policy/planning decisions.
Funding
This work was supported by the University Grants Commission
Junior Research Fellowship (UGC-JRF) Award given to MH by the
University Grants Commission, India for conducting doctoral research.
7. Availability of data and material
The satellite images used in this study are freely available in the
public domain.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrs.2022.01.004.
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