Estimation of emissions from crop residue burning in Türkiye using remotely sensed data and the Google Earth Engine platform

Abstract

This research aims to find crop-based residue burning (CRB) amounts for the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Türkiye, where versatile and diverse of agricultural fields are available. We used the time series of Sentinel-2 images to identify spatial distribution of different crop types and to determine the burned agricultural fields in 2019 using Google Earth Engine platform. We implemented Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change standards to calculate the emissions from Greenhouse gases and Particulate Matter. We also analyzed Sentinel-5P images to generate Nitrogen Dioxide maps and compared them with crop-based emission calculations. Our analysis illustrated that 14,444.307 Gg of Greenhouse Gases and 117.809 Gg of Particulate Matters were released in 2019 due to CRB practices. Our results can potentially improve the national statistics by providing spatio-temporal field-based CRB emissions and supporting country-level agricultural decision-making processes. Researchers could implement our proposed data and methodology in other regions suffering from the CRB problem.