Abandoned farmland detection using single-year satellite images in Japan

Mapping abandoned farmlands' location and spatial pattern is essential for rural planning. Monitoring small abandoned farmland based on dynamic farmland's phenology is challenging to due to conflict between spatial and temporal resolutions of conventional satellite missions. A unique approach that combines satellite constellation imagery with improved automatic radiometric normalization method for more temporally consistent reflectance were proposed. Applying it in Ami-town, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, abandoned farmlands were identified with 3-m resolution and a Kappa coefficient of 0.81 based on satellite constellation-based time-series data; however, the discrimination of the degree of abandonment was challenging. Unlike conventional abandoned farmland mapping approaches which targets spatially large area, our approach provides information at small, fragmented and abandoned farmland in East Asia that enables labor-saving monitoring of land use shifts.