Precise phenological calendars, for each cultivated species and variety, are necessary both to highlight anomalous agronomic situations and to feed crop models. This study, conducted in the Italian rice area, focuses on the evaluation of the contribution of remote sensing satellite data to providing phenological information on rice cropping systems. A time series of 5 years (2001–2005) of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) 16-day composites was analysed with the TIMESAT program in order to automatically retrieve key phenological information such as the start of season (emergence), peak (heading) and end of season (maturity). The procedure involved two steps: (1) interpolation and smoothing of MODIS NDVI temporal profile and (2) the analysis of a temporal signal for the extraction of the phenological metrics. The remote sensing estimates were evaluated using information regarding cultivated variety, sowing dates, management and production directly acquired from rice farmers. A good correlation (R ² = 0.92, n = 24) has been observed between estimates derived from satellites and estimates produced with the traditional Growing Degree Days (GDD) method based on thermal unit accumulation. Improved estimates of the maturity stage were obtained using a procedure that integrates satellite and GDD methods; however its application requires spatially distributed information on the cultivated varieties. Satellite derived maps of the retrieved phenological parameters showed an intra-seasonal pattern related to different cultivated varieties. Inter-seasonal analysis allowed the anomalous behaviour of the year 2003 to be highlighted, characterized by rapid growth at the beginning of the spring and an early senescence. The results confirm the potential of remotely sensed data for the monitoring of crop status and for the forcing of crop models in a spatially distributed way.

The scientific community interested in atmospheric chemistry, gas emissions from vegetation fires, and carbon cycling is currently demanding information on the extent and timing of biomass burning at the global scale. In fact, the area and type of vegetation that is burned on a monthly or annual basis are two of the parameters that provide the greatest uncertainty in the calculation of gas and aerosol emissions and burned biomass. To address this need, an inventory of burned areas at monthly time periods for the year 2000 at a resolution of 1 km²has been produced using satellite data and has been made freely available to the scientific community. In this paper, estimates of burned area and number of burn scars for four broad vegetation classes and reported at the country level for the year 2000 are presented using data taken from the inventory. Over 3.5 million km²of burned areas were detected in the year 2000, of which approximately 80% occurred in areas described as woodlands and shrublands. Approximately 17% of the burned area occurred in grasslands and croplands, the remaining 3% occurred in forests. Almost 600,000 separate burn scars were detected. Descriptions of vegetation burning activity are given for ten regions. Finally, monthly burned area estimates are presented for the Central African Republic to illustrate the usefulness of these data for understanding, monitoring and managing vegetation burning activities.