Kei Oyoshi

Mapping rice-planted areas using time-series synthetic aperture radar data for the Asia-RiCE activity

In Asia, rice is a staple cereal crop and the continent accounts for about 90xa0% of the global rice production and consumption. Statistics on the areas planted with rice or production of paddy rice are fundamental to agriculture-related decisions or policy-making. Asia-Rice Crop Estimation & Monitoring (Asia-RiCE) aims to develop rice-related information, such as paddy field maps, rice growing conditions, yield, and production, using remote sensing tools and disseminate the same at the local and global scales. In this paper, we propose a methodology for the identification of rice-planted areas by using multi-temporal SAR images; a software named INternational Asian Harvest mOnitoring system for Rice (INAHOR) was developed to manipulate the proposed algorithm. The INAHOR uses the imagery observed both at the time of planting of rice and grown-up stages. In this study, two thresholds needed for the INAHOR were optimized based on the detailed land cover data collected through a field survey. Rice-planted areas across the study area in Japan were identified by the INAHOR using the RADARSAT-2 Wide Fine beam mode data. The classification results of RADARSAT-2 VV and VH polarizations were compared. The data with VH polarization showed a higher total accuracy of 83xa0% with −20.5xa0dB and 3.0xa0dB for the minimum and range thresholds, respectively. The INAHOR is currently being used with the RADARSAT-2, ALOS, and ALOS-2 SAR data in the Southeast Asian countries to assess the robustness of the thresholds and classification accuracies under the framework of Asia-RiCE.

Japan’s efforts to promote global health using satellite remote sensing data from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for prediction of infectious diseases and air quality

In this paper we review the status of new applications research of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for global health promotion using information derived from Earth observation data by satellites in cooperation with inter-disciplinary collaborators. Current research effort at JAXA to promote global public health is focused primarily on the use of remote sensing to address two themes: (i) prediction models for malaria and cholera in Kenya, Africa; and (ii) air quality assessment of small, particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3). Respiratory and cardivascular diseases constitute cross-boundary public health risk issues on a global scale. The authors report here on results of current of a collaborative research to call attention to the need to take preventive measures against threats to public health using newly arising remote sensing information from space.

An overview of space applications for environment initiatives

Recently, climate change and human activities accelerate hazards, such as deforestations, land slides, draughts, floods in Asian-Pacific countries are increased. To mitigate the hazards due to climate change and human activities, environmental monitoring has become important. Environment change monitoring by using space based technology are very important. Asian Pacific regional forum (APRSAF) agreed to host SAFE (Space Applications For Environment) initiatives. Under APRSAF, there are on-going several SAFE prototyping for water management, agriculture, fishery and coastal monitoring This paper describes SAFE overview and current situation of SAFE prototyping.