Part II Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Applications for Sustainable Development Rice Mapping by SAR in the Service of Land Resources Exploitation in Mekong Delta

Land resources in the Mekong delta have a long history of formation and exploitation. However, after Vietnam has become the second rice exporter in the World and the problem of food security of the country is completely controlled this biggest rice producer region is facing to the challenges of crop diversification which are not yet controllable. It is important to understand the relation between spatio-temporal repartition of rice and land resources and to explain the change of land resources exploitation behavior of the local population. Due to the cloudy condition in the region, rice mapping by SAR based on multi-temporal variation of rice canopy backscatter is almost unique solution to rapidly provide input data for our analysis. In the frame work of Vietrice project a series of acquisition by Radarsat have been completed between 1999 and 2000 in two provinces in Mekong Delta to cover all the three main crops: Winter-Spring, Summer-Autumn and Autumn-Winter. Image processing, ground truthing, questionnaire analysis are three indispensably integrated components of this research. The analysis allows us to conclude that the main reason of land resources exploitation changes in the studied are leaded by different socio-economic factors rather than purely by biophysical conditions