Change detection and classification of land cover at Hustai National Park in Mongolia

Land cover types of Hustai National Park (HNP) in Mongolia, a hotspot area with rare species, were classified and their temporal changes were evaluated using Landsat MSS TM/ETM data between 1994 and 2000. Maximum-likelihood classification analysis showed an overall accuracy of 88.0% and 85.0% for the 1994 and 2000 images, respectively. Kappa coefficients associated with the classification were resulted to 0.85 for 1994 and 0.82 for 2000 image. Land cover types revealed significant temporal changes in the classification maps between 1994 and 2000. The area has increased considerably by 166.5 km² for mountain steppe and by 12 km² for a sand dune. By contrast, agricultural areas and degraded areas affected by human being activity were decreased by 46.1 km² and 194.8 km² over the 6-year span, respectively. These areas were replaced by mountain steppe area. Specifically, forest area was noticeably fragmented, accompanied by the decrease of ∼400 ha. The forest area revealed a pattern with systematic gain and loss associated with the specific phenomenon called as ‘forest free-south slope’. We discussed the potential environmental conditions responsible for the systematic pattern and addressed other biological impacts by outbreaks of forest pests and ungulates.     

四种基于像元的地表覆盖变化检测方法比较

目前遥感影像变化检测方法很多,但各种方法的适用性各不相同。鉴于灰度差值、NDVI差值、灰度比值、主成分分析法在地表覆盖变化检测中应用广泛,文章从数据更新的角度对这4种方法进行了比较;在分析比较这4种方法的单一变化检测精度、检测结果的相同性、相异性的基础上探索了适合于30m分辨率TM地表覆盖变化检测的组合方法。实验结果表明,在地表覆盖变化检测中,有效组合方法能够取得比单一变化检测方法更好的效果;比值法并NDVI差值法并PCA差异法的检测结果中包含了4种单一检测方法所检测出的全部变化像元,达到了最高的生产者精度,比较适合于地表覆盖数据更新制图应用。     

Determination of land degradation causes in Tongyu County,Northeast China via land cover change detection

Tongyu County in Northeast China is highly prone to land degradation due to its fragile physical settings characterized by a flat topography, a semi-arid climate, and a shallow groundwater table. This study aims to determine the causes of land degradation through detecting the long-term trend of land cover changes. Degraded lands were mapped from satellite images recorded in 1992 and 2002. These land cover maps revealed that the area subject to land degradation in the form of soil salinization, waterlogging and desertification increased from 2400 to 4214 km², in sharp contrast to most severely degraded land that decreased by 122.5 km². Newly degraded land stems from productive farmland (263 km²), harvested farmland (551 km²), and grassland (468 km²). Therefore, the worsened degradation situation is attributed to excessive reclamation of grassland for farming, over cultivation, overgrazing, and deforestation. Mechanical, biological, ecological and engineering means should be adopted to rehabilitate the degraded land.     

Environmental assessment and land change analysis in seminatural land covers applicable to land management

The present research is based on the hypertemporal analysis of a set of 212 images from the NDVI index from January 2003 to March 2012 provided by the medium-resolution sensor MODIS TERRA. The study area is located in the center of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain). The specific objectives of the study are to investigate the rhythms of the annual development of the NDVI of each of the classes, determine the classes that are most sensitive to climatic variability and define the interannual sequences of variation in NDVI with an associated trend analysis. The classes situated in lower-altitude areas are strongly dependent on autumn rainfall and present negative temporal tendencies, and those situated at mountaintops and on upper slopes are correlated with spring–summer temperatures and exhibit stable or positive tendencies.     

基于时空域密度异常的土地利用/土地覆盖短期变化检测

论文分析了时间序列遥感影像中土地利用/土地覆盖短期变化的特点及其时空异常特征, 认为和环境、物候等因素造成的影像变化相比, 由人为活动引起的土地利用/土地覆盖变化具有典型的时间和空间异常特征, 并提出了基于密度异常的土地利用短期变化检测方法。研究工作选取珠江口地区1—5月作物生长期间的3个时间序列Radarsat雷达影像进行试验, 在影像分割的基础上, 构建了基于对象的特征变化矢量, 并将密度异常检测算法(DBAD)扩展到变化矢量的N维特征空间上, 运用随机搜索策略确定检测参数, 对Radarsat时间序列变化矢量中的“小模式”事件进行了检测。检测结果认为, 密度异常检测算法检测的是变化矢量在特征空间的密度分布, 与变化矢量的强度和方向无关, 因此能在时间序列影像中分离出由典型的、正常的作物生长或农事活动引起的影像光谱或回波变化, 进而识别出由人为活动或突发事件导致的土地利用/土地覆盖变化, 这是通常的图像差值等方法难以做到的。进一步的抽样检测说明, 密度异常检测方法对新增建设用地的检测准确率最高(>88%);林地地表覆盖相对稳定, 检测误差也很低(8%);农用地和养殖水面的异常变化检测误差在11%—22%之间;较大的检测误差主要集中在建设用地、农用地和未利用地之间的转换(16%—25%);此外, 养殖水面的检测误差主要集中在河流沿岸及水面变化较大的养殖区域。影像分割结果特别是一些线状分割图斑以及混合地类图斑对误差也有一定的影响。     

Spatio-temporal pattern analysis of land use/cover change trajectories in Xihe watershed

Human-induced land use/cover change has been considered to be one of the most important parts of global environmental changes. In loess hilly and gully regions, to prevent soil loss and achieve better ecological environments, soil conservation measures have been taken during the past decades. The main objective of this study is to quantify the spatio-temporal variability of land use/cover change spatial patterns and make preliminary estimation of the role of human activity in the environmental change in Xihe watershed, Gansu Province, China. To achieve this objective, the methodology was developed in two different aspects, that is, (1) analysis of change patterns by binary image of change trajectories overlaid with different natural geographic factors, in which Relative Change Intensity (RCI) metric was established and used to make comparisons, and (2) analysis based on pattern metrics of main trajectories in the study area. Multi-source and multi-temporal Remote Sensing (RS) images (including Landsat ETM+ (30 June 2001), SPOT imagery (21 November 2003 and 5 May 2008) and CBERS02 CCD (5 June 2006)) were used due to the constraints of the availability of remotely sensed data. First, they were used to extract land use/cover types of each time node by object-oriented classification method. Classification results were then utilized in the trajectory analysis of land use/cover changes through the given four time nodes. Trajectories at every pixel were acquired to trace the history of land use/cover change for every location in the study area. Landscape metrics of trajectories were then analyzed to detect the change characteristics in time and space through the given time series. Analysis showed that most land use/cover changes were caused by human activities, most of which, under the direction of local government, had mainly led to virtuous change on the ecological environments. While, on the contrary, about one quarter of human-induced changes were vicious ones. Analysis through overlaying binary image of change trajectories with natural factors can efficiently show the spatio-temporal distribution characteristics of land use/cover change patterns. It is found that in the study area RCI of land use/cover changes is related to the distance to the river line. And there is a certain correlation between RCI and slope grades. However, no obvious correlation exists between RCI and aspect grades.     

Integrating the system dynamic and cellular automata models to predict land use and land cover change

Land use and land cover change (LULCC) is a widely researched topic in related studies. A number of models have been established to simulate LULCC patterns. However, the integration of the system dynamic (SD) and the cellular automata (CA) model have been rarely employed in LULCC simulations, although it allows for combining the advantages of each approach and therefore improving the simulation accuracy. In this study, we integrated an SD model and a CA model to predict LULCC under three future development scenarios in Northern Shanxi province of China, a typical agro-pastoral transitional zone. The results indicated that our integrated approach represented the impacts of natural and socioeconomic factors on LULCC well, and could accurately simulate the magnitude and spatial pattern of LULCC. The modeling scenarios illustrated that different development pathways would lead to various LULCC patterns. This study demonstrated the advantages of the integration approach for simulating LULCC and suggests that LULCC is affected to a large degree by natural and socioeconomic factors.     

Assessing land cover change resulting from large surface mining development

A remote sensing based land cover change assessment methodology is presented and applied to a case study of the Oil Sands Mining Development in Athabasca, Alta., Canada. The primary impact was assessed using an information extraction method applied to two LANDSAT scenes. The analysis based on derived land cover maps shows a decrease of natural vegetation in the study area (715,094 ha) for 2001 approximately −8.64% relative to 1992. Secondary assessment based on a key resources indicator (KRI), calculated using normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI measurements acquired by NOAA–AVHRR satellites), air temperature and global radiation was performed for a time period from 1990 to 2002. KRI trend analysis indicates a slightly decreasing trend in vegetation greenness in close proximity to the mining development. A good agreement between the time series of inter-annual variations in NDVI and air temperature is observed increasing the confidence of NDVI as an indicator for assessing vegetation productivity and its sensitivity to changes in local conditions.     

Updating land cover automatically based on change detection using satellite images: case study of national forests in Southern California

Observing dynamic change patterns and higher-order complexities from remotely sensed images is warranted, but the main challenges include image inconsistency, plant phenological differences, weather variations, and difficulties of incorporating natural conditions into automatic image processing. In this study, we proposed a new algorithm and demonstrated it by producing 2002–2008 and 2010 land-cover maps in heterogeneous Southern California based on an existing 2009 land-cover map. The new algorithm improves the baseline land-cover map quality by discarding potential bad land-cover pixels and dividing each land-cover type into several subclasses. Time series Landsat images were used to detect changed and unchanged areas between baseline year and target year t. Subsequently, for each individual year t, each pixel that was identified as unchanged inherited the baseline classification. Otherwise, each pixel in the changed areas was classified by a similar surrogate majority classifier. The demonstration results in Southern California showed that the land-cover temporal pattern captured the observed successional stages of the ecosystem very well. The accuracy assessment had an overall classification accuracies ranging from 81% to 86% and overall kappa coefficients ranging from 0.79 to 0.83.     

Linking land cover dynamics with driving forces in mountain landscape of the Northwestern Iberian Peninsula

The mountainous areas of the northwestern Iberian Peninsula have undergone intense land abandonment. In this work, we wanted to determine if the abandonment of the rural areas was the main driver of landscape dynamics in Gerês–Xurés Transboundary Biosphere Reserve (NW Iberian Peninsula), or if other factors, such as wildfires and the land management were also directly affecting these spatio-temporal dynamics. For this purpose, we used earth observation data acquired from Landsat TM and ETM + satellite sensors, complemented by ancillary data and prior field knowledge, to evaluate the land use/land cover changes in our study region over a 10-year period (2000–2010). The images were radiometrically calibrated using a digital elevation model to avoid cast- and self-shadows and different illumination effects caused by the intense topographic variations in the study area. We applied a maximum likelihood classifier, as well as other five approaches that provided insights into the comparison of thematic maps. To describe the land cover changes we addressed the analysis from a multilevel approach in three areas with different regimes of environmental protection. The possible impact of wildfires was assessed from statistical and spatially explicit fire data. Our findings suggest that land abandonment and forestry activities are the main factors causing the changes in landscape patterns. Specifically, we found a strong decrease of the ‘meadows and crops’ and ‘sparse vegetation areas’ in favor of woodlands and scrublands. In addition, the huge impact of wildfires on the Portuguese side have generated new ‘rocky areas’, while on the Spanish side its impact does not seem to have been a decisive factor on the landscape dynamics in recent years. We conclude rural exodus of the last century, differences in land management and fire suppression policies between the two countries and the different protection schemes could partly explain the different patterns of changes recorded in these covers.     

Land use land cover classification of Orissa using multi-temporal IRS-P6 awifs data: A decision tree approach

An attempt has been made to understand the potential of temporal Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) data aboard IRS-P6 (Resourcesat) to generate the land use land cover information along with the net sown area. The temporal data sets were georeferenced, converted to top of atmosphere reflectance and classified using decision tree classifier, See5. Results indicate that the temporal data set could give a better definition of training sites thereby resulting in good overall kappa (kappa = 0.8651) as well as individual classification accuracies. However, co-registration of temporal datasets accuracies also has got a significant influence on the classification accuracy. Temporal variation in cloud infestation and availability of appropriate data sets within the season (before harvest of the crop) has also affected the classification accuracy.     

Normalised difference spectral indices and urban land cover as indicators of land surface temperature (LST)

Land cover changes associated with urbanisation modify microclimate, leading to urban heat islands, whereby cities are warmer than the surrounding countryside. Understanding the factors causing this phenomenon could help urban areas adapt to climate change and improve living conditions of inhabitants. In this study, land surface temperatures (LST) of Aarhus, a city in the high latitudes, are estimated from the reflectance of a thermal band (TIRS1; Band 10; 10.60–11.19 μm) of Landsat 8 on five dates in the summer months (one in 2015, and four in 2018). Spectral indices, modelled on the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI), using all combinations of the first seven bands of Landsat 8 are calculated and their relationships with LST, analysed. Land cover characteristics, in terms of the percentages of tree cover, building cover and overall vegetation cover are estimated from airborne LiDAR data, building footprints and 4-band aerial imagery, respectively. The correlations between LST, the spectral indices and land cover are estimated.The difference in mean temperature between the rural and urban parts of Aarhus is up to 3.96 °C, while the difference between the warmer and colder zones (based on the mean and SD of LST) is up to 13.26 °C. The spectral index using the near infrared band (NIR; Band 5; 0.85-0.88 μm) and a short-wave infrared band (SWIR2; Band 7; 2.11–2.29 μm) has the strongest correlations (r: 0.62 to 0.89) with LST for the whole study area. This index is the inverse of normalised burn ratio (NBR), which has been used for mapping burnt areas. Spectral indices using different combinations of the infrared bands have stronger correlations with LST than the more widely used vegetation indices such as NDVI. The percentage of tree cover has a higher negative correlation (Pearson’s r: -0.68 to -0.75) with LST than overall vegetation cover (r: -0.45 to -0.63). Tree cover and building cover (r: 0.53 to 0.71) together explain up to 68 % of the variation in LST. Modification of tree and building cover may therefore have the potential to regulate urban LST.     

结合光谱和纹理特征的林地变更检测

开展林地变更调查,能够为森林执法督察、林地"一张图"更新等提供精准的空间信息和属性信息,对于林业资源的监测管理具有重要意义。针对大范围多时相遥感影像人工勾绘变化图斑耗时费力的现状,提出一种结合光谱和纹理特征的林地变更检测方法,并以灵山县东北部为例,利用20171209和20180201两个时期的高分二号遥感影像进行试验。结果表明,该方法在减少人力投入、降低时间成本的基础上,不仅将遥感影像的变化检测效率提高了一半以上,同时能达到77%以上的检测准确率,在森林资源普查中具有一定的应用价值。     

基于GIS的岷江上游流域土地利用／覆被变化研究

以岷江上游流域为对象,选取3期9景TM/+ETM遥感影像,通过多步骤最大似然监督分类、变化检测,结合空间动态分析测算模型,分析近20年土地利用/覆被变化情况。结果表明:从整个流域分析,林地面积减少,主要转化为未利用地、建设用地和耕地;未利用地在前8年以每年3.7%、后8年以每年0.4%的速度增加;建设用地在1994—2002年以每年34%的速度增加,到2002—2010年增长速度减缓;耕地总面积减少54 431hm2;从县域分析,1994—2002年间,松潘和黑水县大面积林地转为未利用地;2002—2010年间,松潘县未利用地转为林地和建设用地,茂县和汶川县未利用地面积大幅增加。该研究结论不仅为国土资源管理部门优化土地利用结构提供依据,亦为当地政府实现生态资源可持续发展提供数据支撑。     

Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar change detection for specific land cover types

This paper presents a supervised polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) change detection method applied to specific land cover types. For each pixel of a PolSAR image, its target scattering vector can be modeled as having a complex multivariate normal distribution. Based on this assumption, the joint distribution of two corresponding vectors in a pair of PolSAR images is derived. Then, a generalized likelihood ratio test statistic for the equality of two likelihood functions of such joint distribution is considered and a maximum likelihood distance measure for specific land cover types is presented. Subsequently, the Kittler and Illingworth minimum error threshold segmentation method is applied to extract the specific changed areas. Experiments on two repeat-pass Radarsat-2 fully polarimetric images of Suzhou, China, demonstrate that the proposed change detection method gives a good performance in determining the specific changed areas in PolSAR images, especially the areas that have changed to water.     

DMC卫星影像在海啸灾情土地覆盖类型变化分析中的应用

利用DMC卫星影像,对在2004年12月26日发生在印度洋海啸中,受灾严重的印度尼西亚亚齐特别自治区进行土地覆盖类型变化比较分析,科学客观的对灾情进行评估,从而阐述了DMC卫星影像在灾情分析及土地覆盖类型监测等方面的应用前景。     

基于正态分布的三维建筑物变化检测高度差阈值确定方法

针对现有三维建筑物变化检测中高度差阈值确定方法存在主观性强、阈值通用性差的问题,本文提出了一种基于正态分布的高度差阈值确定方法。借鉴二维变化检测中变化和未变化像元差值服从正态分布的理论,首先,假设2期DSM高度差服从或近似服从正态分布,并分析了变化和未变化区域高度差的分布;然后,基于拉依达准则提出了利用期望和标准差计算高度差阈值的方法;最后,利用滑动窗口动态计算待检测区域高度差阈值。在2个试验区内,基于本文阈值方法的建筑物变化检测结果较经验阈值方法在完整率、正确率和检测质量上分别平均提高了7.2%、1.5%和7.8%,说明该方法具有较好的通用性。     

Comparative analysis of land use/cover change trajectories and their driving forces in two small watersheds in the western Loess Plateau of China

To prevent soil loss and achieve better ecological environments, soil conservation measures have been taken during the past decades in the western Loess Plateau of China. In this paper, a case study was taken in Luoyu valley and Lver valley, two sub-watersheds of Xihe watershed and comparison was carried out between them. The main object of this study is to monitor land use/cover changes in the two similar small watersheds utilizing SPOT5 imageries by object-oriented human–computer interactive classification method, further develop the method of spatio-temporal analysis of land use/cover change by using pattern metrics of change trajectories and relative land use suitability index (R) in smaller watersheds, and make comparisons between the two similar small watersheds, taking water and soil conservation measures into consideration. Results show that combining GIS and RS, this method can be perfectly applied to make comparisons between different small watersheds with similar geographical backgrounds. And land use/cover spatiotemporal dynamic change characteristics can be preferably expressed by pattern metrics of change trajectories and R values based on topographical data. Different emphases have been laid according to their own geological backgrounds in the two watersheds and human activities have different effects on the landscapes of the two watersheds. The main change pattern is from slope farmland to terrace (322, the largest in Luoyu valley) or to economic fruit forest (344, the largest in Lver valley). R value of every slope grade in both of the two watersheds drops with the rising of slope degree on the whole and it shows that there is still much to do for people in the two watersheds in consideration that all the R values are still lower than 0.7.     

Land cover changed object detection in remote sensing data with medium spatial resolution

Land cover change information is crucial to analyse the process and the change patterns of environments and ecological systems. Recent studies have incorporated object-based image analysis for its ability to generate meaningful geographical objects into studies of change detection. In this research, we developed a systematic methodology to realise multi-type land cover changed object detection with medium spatial resolution remote sensing images in Beijing, China. Optimum index factor (OIF) was applied to determine the best change indicators and the chi-square transformation was carried out to determine the change threshold of the 4 classes of changed object. The clustering change vectors in the feature space were proposed to discriminate the change types. According to the accuracy assessment, the overall accuracy of changed/unchanged object detection was approximately 93.9% with an overall kappa of 0.824, and the change type discrimination also achieved an overall accuracy of 81.67%, indicating the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Changing landscape in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area of Yangtze River from 1977 to 2005: Land use/land cover,vegetation cover changes estimated using multi-source satellite data

The eco-environment in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) in China has received much attention due to the construction of the Three Gorges Hydropower Station. Land use/land cover changes (LUCC) are a major cause of ecological environmental changes. In this paper, the spatial landscape dynamics from 1978 to 2005 in this area are monitored and recent changes are analyzed, using the Landsat TM (MSS) images of 1978, 1988, 1995, 2000 and 2005. Vegetation cover fractions for a vegetation cover analysis are retrieved from MODIS/Terra imagery from 2000 to 2006, being the period before and after the rising water level of the reservoir. Several analytical indices have been used to analyze spatial and temporal changes. Results indicate that cropland, woodland, and grassland areas reduced continuously over the past 30 years, while river and built-up area increased by 2.79% and 4.45% from 2000 to 2005, respectively. The built-up area increased at the cost of decreased cropland, woodland and grassland. The vegetation cover fraction increased slightly. We conclude that significant changes in land use/land cover have occurred in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area. The main cause is a continuous economic and urban/rural development, followed by environmental management policies after construction of the Three Gorges Dam.