Annual space-based crop inventory for Canada: 2009–2014

Starting in 2009, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) began the process of generating annual crop type digital maps using satellite imagery. Focusing on the Prairie Provinces in 2009 and 2010, a Decision Tree (DT) based methodology was applied using optical (Landsat, Resourcesat-1, DMC, SPOT) and radar (Radarsat-2) imagery. Starting with the 2011 growing season, this activity was extended to other provinces in support of a national crop inventory. Since then, AAFC has consistently delivered an annual crop inventory that is close to the overall target accuracy of 85% at the national scale. However, from one province to another, and from one year to another, the classification accuracy is not uniform. It varies depending on satellite data availability and training site distribution. In an effort to improve mapping quality, the methodology is constantly evolving and new classifiers are under investigation.