The application of day and night time ASTER satellite imagery for geothermal and mineral mapping in East Africa

There is considerable interest in optimizing geothermal exploration techniques via the mapping of alteration and evaporate mineralisation, as well as of thermal emissions associated with geothermally active areas on the Earth’s surface. Optical and thermal satellite sensor technologies, improvements in processing algorithms and the means for large scale (e.g. 1:250,000) spatial data distribution are required for detecting both these attributes. The extensive visible, -near, -shortwave and thermal infrared (VNIR-SWIR-TIR) data archive acquired by the multi-spectral Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Reflectance Radiometer (ASTER) provides a rich source of geoscience related imagery for geothermal exploration. Examples of generating large scale mosaicked ASTER imagery to provide province to continental mineral mapping have been undertaken in areas including such as Australia, western USA, Namibia and Zagros Mountains Iran. In addition, ASTER’s thermal infrared imagery also provides night time land surface temperature (LST) estimates relevant for detecting possible geothermal related anomalies.This study outlines existing methods for the application of ASTER data for geothermal exploration in East Africa. The study area encompasses a section of the East African Rift System across the Tanzanian and Kenyan border. The area includes rugged volcanic terrain which has had geological mapping of limited coverage at detailed scales, from various heritages and mapping agencies. This study summarizes the technology, the processing methodology and initial results in applying ASTER imagery for such compositional and thermal anomaly mapping related to geothermal activity. Fields observations have been used from the geothermal springs of Lake Natron, Tanzania, and compared with ASTER derived spectral composition and land surface temperature results. Published geothermal fields within the Kenyan portion of the study area have also been incorporated into this study.     

Multi-resolution integration of land cover for sub-pixel estimation of urban impervious surface and forest cover

Abstract

A methodology is presented for estimating percent coverage of impervious surface (IS) and forest cover (FC) within Landsat thematic mapper (TM) pixels of urban areas. High-resolution multi-spectral images from Quickbird (QB) play a key role in the sub-pixel mapping process by providing information on the spatial distributions of ISs and FCs at 2.4 m ground sampling intervals. Thematic classifications, also derived from the Landsat imagery, have then been employed to define relationships between 30 m Landsat-derived greenness values and percent IS and FC. By also utilizing land cover/land use classification derived from Landsat and defining unique relationships for urban sub-classes (i.e. residential, commercial/industrial, open land), confusion between impervious and fallow agricultural lands has been overcome. Test results are presented for Ottawa-Gatineau, an urban area that encompasses many aspects typical of the North American urban landscape. Multiple QB scenes have been acquired for this urban centre, thereby allowing us to undertake an in-depth study of the error budgets associated with the fractional inference process.     

ASTER和TM/ETM+遥感数据融合监测土地覆盖变化

在人们纷纷选择IKONOS、QUICKBIRD、SPOT-5等高分辨率影像监测土地利用/覆盖变化之际,以北京海淀区为例,尝试采用Brovey变换和主成分分析(PCA)法融合ASTER、TM/ETM+中等分辨率影像,充分利用ASTER、TM/ETM+数据的多光谱和较高空间分辨率特性,挖掘其在土地覆盖变化监测中的潜力,为大规模监测土地利用/覆盖变化提供科学参考。研究将2003年ASTER多光谱3N、2、1波段与1999年ETM+PAN波段进行Brovey变换;1992年TM543与1999年ETM+PAN波段进行PCA融合,快速发现土地覆盖变化信息。经验证,变化发现精度达92.50%,符合项目精度要求。试验表明:在缺乏高分辨率影像的地区,选择价格相对便宜的AS-TER和TM/ETM+数据,采用Brovey变换和主成分分析(PCA)法进行融合,可有效监测土地覆盖变化,节约动态监测成本,二者具有很大的应用价值,值得推广。     

利用经验线方法校准ASTER和ETM+影像——以也门Hajjah东北部为例(英文)

This study is aimed at using the Empirical Line Method (ELM) to eliminate atmospheric effects with respect to visible and near infrared bands of advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer (ASTER) and enhanced thematic mapper plus (ETM+) data. Two targets (Amran limestone as light target and quartz-biotite-sericite-graphite schists as dark target), which were widely exposed and easy to identify in the imagery were selected. The accuracy of the atmos-pheric correction method was evaluated ...     

Fusion of VNIR and thermal infrared remote sensing data based on GA-SOFM neural network

The multi-source data fusion methods are rarely involved in VNIR and thermal infrared remote sensing at present. Therefore, the potential advantages of the two kinds of data have not yet been adequately tapped, which results in low calculation precision of parameters related with land surface temperature. A new fusion method is put forward where the characteristics of the high spatial resolution of VNIR (visible and near infrared) data and the high temporal resolution of thermal infrared data are fully explored in this paper. Non-linear fusion is implemented to obtain the land surface temperature in high spatial resolution and the high temporal resolution between the land surface parameters estimated from VNIR data and the thermal infrared data by means of GA-SOFM (genetic algorithms & self-organizing feature maps)-ANN (artificial neural network). Finally, the method is verified by ASTER satellite data. The result shows that the method is simple and convenient and can rapidly capture land surface temperature distribution of higher resolution with high precision.     

基于频域滤波的高分辨率遥感图像城市河道信息提取

提出一种基于频域滤波的城市河道信息提取方法。首先对高分辨率遥感图像进行傅里叶变换得到频谱图, 并利用径向和角向分布图分析城市河道的频谱特征。其次, 基于城市河道的双线型特点, 将其分为边缘特征和低频信息两个部分, 并根据周期性纹理的频谱模型和地物频谱能量分布规律确定两个部分的频域识别标志。然后设计相应的扇环形带通log Butterworth滤波器和低通Butterworth滤波器分别对城市河道的边缘特征和低频信息进行提取, 并根据该两部分信息实现城市河道信息提取。最后对城市河道信息提取结果进行定量评价, 结果表明, 本文方法可以有效地实现城市河道的信息提取。     

Integrating spectral and non-spectral data to improve urban settlement mapping in a large Latin-American city

ABSTRACT

Information on urban settlements is crucial for sustainability planning and management. While remote sensing has been used to derive such information, its applicability can be compromised due to the complexity in the urban environment. In this study, we developed a remote sensing method to map land cover types in a large Latin-American city, which is well known for its mushrooming unplanned and informal settlements. After carefully considering the landscape complexity there, we designed a data fusion method combining multispectral imagery and non-spectral data for urban and land mapping. Specifically, we acquired a cloud-free Landsat-8 image and two non-spectral datasets, i.e., digital elevation models and road networks. Then, we implemented a set of experiments with different inputs to evaluate their merits in thematic mapping through a supervised protocol. We found that the map generated with the multispectral data alone had an overall accuracy of 73.3% but combining multispectral imagery and non-spectral data yielded a land cover map with 90.7% overall accuracy. Interestingly, the thermal infrared information helped substantially improve both the overall and categorical accuracies, particularly for the two urban classes. The two types of non-spectral data were critical in resolving several spectrally confused categories, thus considerably increasing the mapping accuracy. However, the panchromatic band with higher spatial resolution and its derived textural measurement only generated a marginal accuracy improvement. The novelties of our work are with the successful separation between the two major types of urban settlements in a complex environment using a carefully designed data fusion approach and the insight into the relative merits of the thermal infrared information and non-spectral data in helping resolve the issue of class ambiguity. These findings should be valuable in deriving accurate urban settlement information which can further advance the research on socio-ecological dynamics and urban sustainability.     

ASTER数据的煤矿区水体信息提取

为实现多光谱数据对煤矿区水体信息提取,以萍乡市芦新岭及周边煤矿为试验区,在国内外学者对水体指数法提取水体信息和应用的启发下,对试验区不同地物的波谱特征进行分析。本文首先利用数学统计方法建立一种ASTER数据综合归一化差异水体指数模型SWI ASTER_xy,然后利用这一模型对试验区进行水体信息提取。试验表明,该模型能够有效地提取矿区各类水体,还可以运用在ASTER数据（或其他多光谱数据）对不同区域不同地物的提取,在遥感地物定量提取上具有很好的效果和潜力,具有一定的推广价值。     

Calibration of ASTER and ETM + imagery using empirical line method—A case study of north-east of Hajjah, Yemen

This study is aimed at using the Empirical Line Method (ELM) to eliminate atmospheric effects with respect to visible and near infrared bands of advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer (ASTER) and enhanced thematic mapper plus (ETM+) data. Two targets (Amran limestone as light target and quartz-biotite-sericite-graphite schists as dark target), which were widely exposed and easy to identify in the imagery were selected. The accuracy of the atmospheric correction method was evaluated from three targets (vegetation cover, Amran limestone and Akbra shale) of the surface reflectance. Analytical spectral devices (ASD) FieldSpec3 was used to measure the spectra of target samples. ETM+ data were less influenced by the atmospheric effect when compared to ASTER data. Normalized differences vegetation indices (NDVI) displayed good results with reflectance data when compared with digital number (DN) data because it is highly sensitive to ground truth reflectance (GTR). Most of the differences observed before and after calibration of satellite images (ASTER and ETM+) were absorbed in the SWIR region.      

利用融合方法提升WorldView短波红外影像分辨率

WorldView卫星在8个可见光-近红外多光谱波段的基础上,新增加的8个短波红外（简称SWIR）影像,大大提高了地物信息提取能力。但短波红外影像分辨率与多光谱影像相比分辨率过低,影响应用效果。本文提出了一种结合主分量变换和非下采样小波变换的影像融合方法来提升WorldView短波红外影像的空间分辨率。定量指标和目视评价证明本文提出的融合方法具有较好的融合效果,能够在显著提升短波红外影像空间分辨率的同时很好地保持原始光谱特性。     

利用融合方法提升WorldVeiw短波红外影像分辨率

WorldView卫星在8个可见光-近红外多光谱波段的基础上,新增加的8个短波红外(简称SWIR)影像,大大提高了地物信息提取能力.但短波红外影像分辨率与多光谱影像相比分辨率过低,影响应用效果.本文提出了一种结合主分量变换和非下采样小波变换的影像融合方法来提升WorldView短波红外影像的空间分辨率.定量指标和目视评价证明本文提出的融合方法具有较好的融合效果,能够在显著提升短波红外影像空间分辨率的同时很好地保持原始光谱特性.     

Neural Network Estimation of Urban Leaf Area Index

Leaf area index (LAI) is a critical parameter for urban forest monitoring. The goal of this study in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA was to develop algorithms to model gap-fraction LAI measured on sample plots as a function of radiometric response measured by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). Two neural networks facilitated the modeling. The first was trained to detect sites dominated by bare ground using ASTER visible, infrared, and thermal channels. The second estimated LAI as a function of vegetation indices. When the field sample sites were resubmitted to the two networks, the resulting systemwide standard error of the estimate was 1.25 LAI units.     

Mapping of bauxite mineral deposits in the northern region of Saudi Arabia by using Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer satellite data

Mineral deposit mapping is very essential for sustainable and eco-friendly exploitation of natural resources. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has abundant natural resources such as natural gas, oil and minerals. It reserves high quantity of minerals such as phosphates, bauxites, copper, gold and other industrial minerals. The red soil regions located in Hail and Qassim provinces of Saudi Arabia have rich amount of bauxite (major aluminum ore) deposits. In order to initiate the focus on mapping of mineral deposits along this area, standardized hyper-spectral analysis has been carried out by using Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) satellite data. The spectral signature of gibbsite (major element in bauxite) samples is analyzed with reference to the spectral features of gibbsite in the visible near infrared and short-wave infrared bands electromagnetic spectrum. Advanced hyper-spectral transformations such as minimum noise fraction function and pixel purity index have been performed to identify the target end-member. The existence of the mineral is confirmed by comparing the spectral signatures of the end-member with the predefined spectral plots of ASTER and United States Geological Survey spectral libraries. Finally, the end-members are mapped and their abundance is estimated in 0–1 scale. The study has opened up new areas for mapping of bauxite deposits in the area and leads to eco-friendly exploitation of natural resources. It also validates the high potential of ASTER multispectral satellite data for the exploration and mapping of mineral resources.     

Simulated impacts of 3D urban morphology on urban transportation in megacities: case study in Beijing

Urban morphology and morphology change and their impacts on urban transportation have been studied extensively in planar urban space. The essential feature of urban space, however, is its three-dimensionality (3D), and few studies have been conducted from a 3D perspective, overly limiting the accuracy of studies on the relationships between urban morphology and transportation. The aim of this paper is to simulate the impacts of 3D urban morphologies on urban transportation under the Digital Earth framework. On the basis of the principle that population distribution and movement are largely confined by 3D urban morphologies, which affect transportation, high spatial resolution remote sensing imagery and a thematic vector data-set were used to extract urban morphology and transportation-related variables. With a combination of three research methods – factor analysis, spatial regression analysis and Euclidean allocation – we provide an effective method to construct a simulation model. The paper indicates three general results. First, building capacity in the urban space has the most significant impact on traffic condition. Second, obvious urban space otherness, reflecting both use density characteristics and functional characteristics of urban space, mostly results in heavier traffic flow pressure. Third, no single morphology density indicator or single urban structure indicator can reflect its contribution to the pressure of traffic flow directly, but a combination of these different indicators has the ability to do so.     

Near real-time high-resolution airborne camera,AEROCam, for precision agriculture

Precision agriculture often relies on high-resolution imagery to delineate the variability within a field. Airborne Environmental Research Observational Camera (AEROCam) was designed to meet the needs of agriculture producers, ranchers, and researchers, who require high-resolution imagery in a near real-time environment for rapid decision support. AEROCam was developed and operated through a unique collaboration between several departments at the University of North Dakota, including the Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium (UMAC), the School of Engineering and Mines, and flight operations at the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences. AEROCam consists of a Redlake MS4100 area-scan multi-spectral digital camera that features a 1920 × 1080 CCD array (7.4-μm detector) with 8-bit quantization. When operated at ～2 km above ground level, multispectral images with four bands in the visible and near infrared have a ground sample distance of 1 m with a horizontal extent of just over 1.6 km. Depending on the applications, flying at different altitudes can adjust the spatial resolution from 0.25 to 2 m. Rigorous spectral and radiometric calibrations allow AEROCam to be used in a variety of applications, qualitative and quantitative. Equipped with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) system, the images acquired can be geo-referenced automatically and delivered to end users near real time through our Digital Northern Great Plains system (DNGP). The images are also available to zone mapping application for precision farming (ZoneMAP), an online decision support tool for creating management zones from remote sensing imagery and data from other sources. Operational since 2004, AEROCam has flown over 250 sorties and delivered over 150,000 images to the users in the Northern Great Plains region, resulting in numerous applications in precision agriculture and resource management.     

Identification of understory invasive exotic plants with remote sensing in urban forests

Invasive exotic plants (IEP) pose a significant threat to many ecosystems. To effectively manage IEP, it is important to efficiently detect their presences and determine their distribution patterns. Remote sensing has been a useful tool to map IEP but its application is limited in urban forests, which are often the sources and sinks for IEP. In this study, we examined the feasibility and tradeoffs of species level IEP mapping using multiple remote sensing techniques in a highly complex urban forest setting. Bush honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii), a pervasive IEP in eastern North America, was used as our modeling species. Both medium spatial resolution (MSR) and high spatial resolution (HSR) imagery were employed in bush honeysuckle mapping. The importance of spatial scale was also examined using an up-scaling simulation from the HSR object based classification. Analysis using both MSR and HSR imagery provided viable results for IEP distribution mapping in urban forests. Overall mapping accuracy ranged from 89.8% to 94.9% for HSR techniques and from 74.6% to 79.7% for MSR techniques. As anticipated, classification accuracy reduces as pixel size increases. HSR based techniques produced the most desirable results, therefore is preferred for precise management of IEP in heterogeneous environment. However, the use of MSR techniques should not be ruled out given their wide availability and moderate accuracy.     

利用雷达干涉数据进行城市不透水层百分比估算

人工不透水层是城市地区的重要特征.作为城市生态环境的关键指数,不透水层百分比(Impervious Surfaces Percentage, ISP)常用于城市水文过程模拟、水质面源污染及城市专题制图等研究中.本文利用ERS-1/2 重复轨道雷达干涉数据,采用分类与回归树(CART)算法探究了雷达遥感在城市ISP估算中的可行性和潜力,并与SPOT5 HRG光学遥感图像的估算结果进行了分析比较.香港九龙港岛实验区的初步研究结果表明,雷达干涉数据在城市不透水层研究中具有一定的应用潜力,特别是裸土和稀疏植被的ISP估算结果要好于光学遥感,这主要得益于雷达干涉数据(特别是长时间相干图像)在人工建筑物和裸土或稀疏植被之间具有很强的区分能力,另外,雷达干涉数据和光学遥感数据间的融合能够提高ISP估算精度.     

Support-Based Implementation of Bayesian Data Fusion for Spatial Enhancement: Applications to ASTER Thermal Images

In this letter, a general Bayesian data fusion (BDF) approach is proposed and applied to the spatial enhancement of ASTER thermal images. This method fuses information coming from the visible or near-infrared bands (15 $times$ 15 m pixels) with the thermal infrared bands (90 $times$ 90 m pixels) by explicitly accounting for the change of support. By relying on linear multivariate regression assumptions, differences of support size for input images can be explicitly accounted for. Due to the use of locally varying variances, it also avoids producing artifacts on the fused images. Based on a set of ASTER images over the region of Lausanne, Switzerland, the advantages of this support-based approach are assessed and compared to the downscaling cokriging approach recently proposed in the literature. Results show that improvements are substantial with respect to both visual and quantitative criteria. Although the method is illustrated here with a specific case study, it is versatile enough to be applied to the spatial enhancement problem in general. It thus opens new avenues in the context of remotely sensed images.      

Detecting urban ecological land-cover structure using remotely sensed imagery: A multi-area study focusing on metropolitan inner cities

With increasing attention being paid to sustainable urban development and human habitation improvement, urban ecological land cover (UELC), i.e., surface water and green space, has played an important role of the highly compact inner urban regions. In this study, we developed an efficient approach for UELC mapping by coupling Sentinel-2 multi-spectral imagery and Google Earth high-resolution imagery. In contrast with the conventional single-source and multi-source imagery-based classification methods, the proposed method respectively achieved the highest overall accuracies of 91.50% and 94.05% in the UELC mapping for two test sites (i.e. Shanghai and Seoul). The proposed method is used for urban surface mapping among six world-class cities. For an in-depth analysis of the landscape structures for inner urban regions, seven landscape metrics are introduced for the quantification of the UELC structure based on the obtained high-precision UELC maps. The result shows that London appears to have the best UELC-induced ecological quality, that is, with high percentage of landscape, area-weighted mean fractal dimension, edge density, Shannon’s evenness index values and a low contagion index value, while Tokyo is exactly the opposite. Several common characteristics found through the statistical analysis are: 1) all the inner-city regions have small UELC coverage (< 50%) and low shape complexity; 2) green space generally contributes more to urban eco-environment than the urban surface water; and 3) all cities show high landscape consistency in the inner urban region.     

遥感组合指数与不同分类技术结合提取农业用地方法

多光谱遥感影像因具有丰富的波谱信息,提高了地表覆盖的辨识能力,利用遥感数据高精度自动提取专题信息是目前研究的热点和难点。本文以北京市ASTER影像为例,通过对城市生态环境中土地类型及其光谱特征规律分析,组合归一化差异植被指数、修正归一化差异水体指数和归一化差异建筑指数三种指数,制作组合指数新影像。对组合指数影像采用基于支持向量机的面向对象分类方法进行农业用地信息提取,同时将该方法分别与基于原始影像、组合指数影像的最大似然及支持向量机的分类方法进行对比分析。实验结果表明:组合归一化差异指数影像压缩了数据维数,降低了覆盖地物相关性,易于农业用地信息提取。对组合指数影像采用基于支持向量机的面向对象分类方法精度达95.701%。