Study on Extraction Method of Abandoned Farmland based on the Seasonal Variation Characteristics of Remotely Sensed Images

In southwestern China, the cultivation conditions are poor, the plots are relatively fragmented, and the types of plots are complex. Therefore, the use of low and medium resolution remote sensing data is not able to satisfy the needs of abandoned farmland extraction. This paper explored the ability of single or multi-phased high resolution remotely sensed images in detecting abandoned farmland in southwest China, using Xiuwen County, Guizhou Province, China as a case study area. Remote sensing based monitoring methods for abandoned farmland were developed, providing a reference for the statistical survey of abandoned farmland in southwest China.The extraction method of abandoned farmland was proposed based on the field survey data, considering different types of abandoned farmland. Sensitive feature sets of different types of abandoned farmland were identified from a series of features including the spectral characteristics, vegetation indices and multi-temporal difference vegetation indices. The CART decision tree classification method was applied on the selected sensitive features to extract abandoned farmland. The results showed that:(1) There was a significant difference in the recognition ability of single-phase image in extracting different types of abandoned farmland, so it was difficult to use only single-phase image to extract abandoned farmland with high accuracy; (2) The vegetation index change characteristics of different time phases had strong recognition ability for abandoned farmland, and the ratio vegetation index was better than the difference vegetation index and normalized vegetation index; (3) The spatial distribution map of abandoned farmland and the statistical analysis of abandoned farmland area were carried out in Xiuwen County, Guizhou Province. The area of abandoned farmland in Xiuwen County was about 6,460 hectares, accounting for 13% of the cultivated land area.（4）Based on multi-temporal high-resolution remote sensing data, the method of detecting abandoned farmland using seasonal variation characteristics can meet the requirements of high-precision extraction of abandoned farmland in southwest China, and the results provided technical reference for remote sensing survey and mapping of abandoned farmland in large-scale.