Comparison and Integration of Radar and Optical Data for Land Use/Cover Mapping

Abstract

This study examined the complementarity of spaceborne radar and optical data for surface feature identification. RADARSAT data sets were assessed independently and in combination with Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) multispectral data. The primary methodology was spectral signature extraction and the application of a statistical decision rule to classify the surface features for a site near Kericho, Kenya. Relative accuracy of the resultant classifications was established by digital integration and comparison to reference information derived from field visitation. Speckle filtering was a great improvement over the poor results achieved with the unfiltered, original radar data but still not adequate for accurate land cover classification. The extraction and use of Variance texture measures was found to be very advantageous. The overall results were not significant improvements over speckle removal (6% increase) but several individual classes, forest and urban, had excellent results with texture. Combinations of radar with Landsat TM greatly improved results, achieving near perfect classification of all individual classes. The highest overall accuracy was achieved with a merger that included the best individual texture image and six reflectance bands of the TM data. The systematic strategy of this study, determination of the best individual method before introducing the next procedure, was effective in managing a very complex, almost infinite set of analysis possibilities.     

A Comparison of Multisensor Integration Methods for Land Cover Classification in the Brazilian Amazon

Many data fusion methods are available, but it is poorly understood which fusion method is suitable for integrating Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and radar data for land cover classification. This research explores the integration of Landsat TM and radar images (i.e., ALOS PALSAR L-band and RADARSAT-2 C-band) for land cover classification in a moist tropical region of the Brazilian Amazon. Different data fusion methods—principal component analysis (PCA), wavelet-merging technique (Wavelet), high-pass filter resolution-merging (HPF), and normalized multiplication (NMM)—were explored. Land cover classification was conducted with maximum likelihood classification based on different scenarios. This research indicates that individual radar data yield much poorer land cover classifications than TM data, and PALSAR L-band data perform relatively better than RADARSAT-2 C-band data. Compared to the TM data, the Wavelet multisensor fusion improved overall classification by 3.3%-5.7%, HPF performed similarly, but PCA and NMM reduced overall classification accuracy by 5.1%-6.1% and 7.6%-12.7%, respectively. Different polarization options, such as HH and HV, work similarly when used in data fusion. This research underscores the importance of selecting a suitable data fusion method that can preserve spectral fidelity while improving spatial resolution.     

Optical and radar data comparison and integration: Kenya example

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relative classification accuracies of four land covers/uses in Kenya using spaceborne quad polarization radar from the Japanese ALOS PALSAR system and optical Landsat Thematic Mapper data. Supervised signature extraction and classification (maximum likelihood) was used to classify the different land covers/uses followed by an accuracy assessment. The original four band radar had an overall accuracy of 77%. Variance texture was the most useful of four measures examined and did improve overall accuracy to 80% and improved the producer’s accuracy for urban by almost 25% over the original radar. Landsat provided a higher overall classification accuracy (86%) as compared to radar. The merger of Landsat with the radar texture did not increase overall accuracy but did improve the producer’s accuracy for urban indicated some advantages for sensor integration.     

The Utility of Very High Spatial Resolution Images to Identify Urban Objects

Abstract

Landsat MSS, TM and SPOT XS imageries were used in conjunction with unsupervised, supervised and hybrid classilication techniques to classify land cover types in semi‐arid savannas of Mathison Pastoral Station in the Katherine region of northern Australia. Accuracy assessment was based on field data from 246 ground survey sites over a 745‐km² study area. Of 14 land cover classes identified by traditional mapping means, all combinations of imageries and classification techniques differentiated at least seven land cover types. The overall accuracy for these classifications ranged between 43% and 67%. SPOT XS image delivered the best accuracy followed by TM and MSS; unsupervised classification performed better than supervised and hybrid methods. User's and producer's accuracy of individual land units ranged from 0% to 100%. Riparian woodlands, woodland on limestone slopes, shrubland on clay plains, woodland on limestone plains and shadows were the best‐mapped classes. The land units that were associated with undulating hills were not mapped accurately. However, incorporation of a digital elevation model (DEM) in a GIS improved the overall accuracy. The user's and producer's accuracy of dominant land cover types were also enhanced. The classification results and the efficacy of the techniques at Mathison were similar to those found for a nearby semi‐arid area (Kidman Springs) about 200 km from Mathison. However, the overall accuracy was lower at Mathison than at Kidman Springs. Spectral classification masks were developed from the SPOT XS and TM imageries at Kidman Springs, and were applied to classify SPOT XS and TM imageries at Mathison. Initial results showed that the classification mask could be successfully extrapolated to map dominant land cover types but only with moderate accuracy (50%).     

Evaluation of Landsat TM data for forest cover type and landuse classification in subtropical forests of Kumaon Himalaya (U.P.)

LANDSAT-TM has been evaluated for forest cover type and landuse classification in subtropical forests of Kumaon Himalaya (U.P.) Comparative evaluation of false colour composite generated by using various band combinations has been made. Digital image processing of Landsat-TM data on VIPS-32 RRSSC computer system has been carried out to stratify vegetation types. Conventional band combination in false colour composite is Bands 2, 3 and 4 in Red/Green/Blue sequence of Landsat TM for landuse classification. The present study however suggests that false colour combination using Landsat TM bands viz., 4, 5 and 3 in Red/Green/Blue sequence is the most suitable for visual interpretation of various forest cover types and landuse classes. It is felt that to extract full information from increased spatial and spectral resolution of Landsat TM, it is necessary to process the data digitally to classify land cover features like vegetation. Supervised classification using maximum likelihood algorithm has been attemped to stratify the forest vegetation. Only four bands are sufficient enough to classify vegetaton types. These bands are 2,3,4 and 5. The classification results were smoothed digitaly to increase the readiability of the map. Finally, the classification carred out using digital technique were evaluated using systematic sampling design. It is observed that forest cover type mapping can be achieved upto 80% overall mapping accuracy. Monospecies stand Chirpine can be mapped in two density classes viz., dense pine (<40%) with more than 90% accuracy. Poor accuracy (66%) was observed while mapping pine medium dense areas. The digital smoothening reduced the overall mapping accuracy. Conclusively, Landsat-TM can be used as operatonal sensor for forest cover type mapping even in complex landuse-terrain of Kumaon Himalaya (U.P.)     

Vegetation type discrimination on Landsat TM data in heterogeneous forested landscape of Western Ghats—Accuracy evaluation from large scale aerial photo maps

In the present study, forest type classification using Landsat TM False Colour Composite (FCC) bands 2, 3, 4 has been evaluated for mapping highly heterogeneous forest environment of Western Ghats (Kerala). Visual interpretation of Landsat TM FCC has been carried out to identify bioclimatic vegetation types. For accuracy estimation maps prepared from 1∶15,000 scale black-and-white aerial photographs have been used as ground check data. For comparison aerial photomap classes have been aggregated to match with Landsat-TM-derived map. The classification accuracy of ten major bioclimatic and landcover types was estimated using systematic sampling procedure. The overall classification accuracy of the forest types for the study area was 88.33%.     

Radar speckle reduction and derived texture measures for land cover/use classification: a case study

This study examined the appropriateness of radar speckle reduction for deriving texture measures for land cover/use classifications. Radarsat-2 C-band quad-polarised data were obtained for Washington, DC, USA. Polarisation signatures were extracted for multiple image components, classified with a maximum-likelihood decision rule and thematic accuracies determined. Initial classifications using original and despeckled scenes showed despeckled radar to have better overall thematic accuracies. However, when variance texture measures were extracted for several window sizes from the original and despeckled imagery and classified, the accuracy for the radar data was decreased when despeckled prior to texture extraction. The highest classification accuracy obtained for the extracted variance texture measure from the original radar was 72%, which was reduced to 69% when this measure was extracted from a 5 × 5 despeckled image. These results suggest that it may be better to use despeckled radar as original data and extract texture measures from the original imagery.     

Landsat 8 vs. Landsat 5: A comparison based on urban and peri-urban land cover mapping

An image dataset from the Landsat OLI spaceborne sensor is compared with the Landsat TM in order to evaluate the excellence of the new imagery in urban landcover classification. Widely known pixel-based and object-based image analysis methods have been implemented in this work like Maximum Likelihood, Support Vector Machine, k-Nearest Neighbor, Feature Analyst and Sub-pixel. Classification results from Landsat OLI provide more accurate results comparing to the Landsat TM. Object-based classifications produced a more uniform result, but suffer from the absorption of small rare classes into large homogenous areas, as a consequence of the segmentation, merging and the spatial parameters in the spatial resolution (30 m) of Landsat images. Based exclusively on the overall accuracy reports, the SVM pixel-based classification from Landsat 8 proved to be the most accurate for the purpose of mapping urban land cover, using medium spatial resolution imagery.     

Utility of image point cloud data towards generating enhanced multitemporal multisensor land cover maps

Multitemporal land cover classification over urban areas is challenging, especially when using heterogeneous data sources with variable quality attributes. A prominent challenge is that classes with similar spectral signatures (such as trees and grass) tend to be confused with one another. In this paper, we evaluate the efficacy of image point cloud (IPC) data combined with suitable Bayesian analysis based time-series rectification techniques to improve the classification accuracy in a multitemporal context. The proposed method uses hidden Markov models (HMMs) to rectify land covers that are initially classified by a random forest (RF) algorithm. This land cover classification method is tested using time series of remote sensing data from a heterogeneous and rapidly changing urban landscape (Kuopio city, Finland) observed from 2006 to 2014. The data consisted of aerial images (5 years), Landsat data (all 9 years) and airborne laser scanning data (1 year). The results of the study demonstrate that the addition of three-dimensional image point cloud data derived from aerial stereo images as predictor variables improved overall classification accuracy, around three percentage points. Additionally, HMM-based post processing reduces significantly the number of spurious year-to-year changes. Using a set of 240 validation points, we estimated that this step improved overall classification accuracy by around 3.0 percentage points, and up to 6 to 10 percentage points for some classes. The overall accuracy of the final product was 91% (kappa = 0.88). Our analysis shows that around 1.9% of the area around Kuopio city, representing a total area of approximately 0.61 km², experienced changes in land cover over the nine years considered.     

基于ENVISAT ASAR、Landsat TM与DEM的泥炭沼泽信息提取方法

泥炭沼泽是重要的湿地类型之一,对全球变化和生态平衡具有重要意义。本研究在野外实地调查和对比不同地物类型在不同极化方式下雷达影像后向散射系数差异的基础上,以ENVISAT ASAR、Landsat TM与数字高程模型（digital elevation model,DEM）数据为基本信息源,利用面向对象与决策树分类相结合的遥感影像分类方法,实现对小兴安岭西部泥炭沼泽典型分布区不同泥炭沼泽类型的空间分布信息提取,总体分类精度93.54%,Kappa系数0.92。结果表明,该方法在泥炭沼泽信息提取方面具有较大的应用潜力,相对于先前的研究,在分类精度上有一定的提高。     

Lightning flash mensuration using video from the space shuttle Columbia (STS‐32)

Abstract

Environmental data are often utilized to guide interpretation of spectral information based on context, however, these are also important in deriving vegetation maps themselves, especially where ecological information can be mapped spatially. A vegetation classification procedure is presented which combines a classification of spectral data from Landsat‐5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and environmental data based on topography and fire history. These data were combined utilizing fuzzy logic where assignment of each pixel to a single vegetation category was derived comparing the partial membership of each vegetation category within spectral and environmental classes. Partial membership was assigned from canopy cover for forest types measured from field sampling. Initial classification of spectral and ecological data produced map accuracies of less than 50% due to overlap between spectrally similar vegetation and limited spatial precision for predicting local vegetation types solely from the ecological information. Combination of environmental data through fuzzy logic increased overall mapping accuracy (70%) in coniferous forest communities of northwestern Montana, USA.     

专家系统在 TM 图像分类中的应用

提高TM图像的分类精度,是图像处理及应用领域中一个很重要的研究课题。本文在总结已有成果基础上,首先利用现有的统计分类技术,对待分类图像进行预分类,并检测出“不确定”像元。然后综合光谱、地理、土壤类型、早期判别结果、目视判读经验等各种知识和信息,充分发挥专家系统的推理判断能力,对“不确定”像元的类别作进一步判别,使得整幅图像的分类精度得到改善。并据此初步建立了一个土地利用的分类系统。试验证明,这种分类方法的精度比仅用单一多光谱信息的统计分类法(最大似然法)提高约8％。     

基于专家知识的决策树分类

基于ENVI运用专家知识的决策树分类、监督分类、非监督分类手段来实现对于Landsat TM影像和快鸟影像数据的图像分类处理,简单介绍了决策树的建立过程,以及如何进行预处理、分类后处理、精度评价。通过3种分类方式的比较,基于专家知识的决策树分类法具有分类判别规则十分灵活、分类决策树看起来很直观、分类条件清晰、分类效果好、运算效率高等特点。实验中,其分类方式的缺陷表现为分类过多、过于复杂,可能会产生错误的速度加快;决策树判别规则复杂,树形分枝多导致用户难以识别、理解、应用。     

地形抹平与半经验模型的Landsat TM/ETM+地形校正方法

地形校正可以减小地形起伏对地物光谱的影响,提高计算机分类在山区的精度。设计了针对全球土地覆盖分类的Landsat TM/ETM+数据地形校正方法 SCOS(Smoothed COS余弦),首先对地形的坡度角进行抹平处理,很大程度上削弱了地表非朗伯性对地形校正的影响,然后利用简单有效的余弦校正去除地形效应。该方法与其他常用地形校正算法的对比分析是通过对全球不同区域、不同地表覆盖的有代表性的6景Landsat TM/ETM+数据的试验,采用统计分析与目视判读的方式,从过度校正和类内均一性两个方面进行的。结果表明,该方法在目视效果和统计结果上优于常规方法,并且更加简单有效,无需复杂的大气参数及传感器参数,满足全球地表覆盖分类对地形校正的需求。     

Age discrimination among eruptives of Menengai Caldera,Kenya, using vegetation parameters from satellite imagery

This paper reports an investigation to determine the degree to which digitally processed Landsat TM imagery can be used to discriminate among vegetated lava flows of different ages in the Menengai Caldera, Kenya. Since Landsat data display vegetation parameters well, and plant communities vary with type and depth of soil development, selective digital processing techniques were applied to take advantage of these characteristics for discriminating relative age differences of the underlying volcanics. A selective series of five images, consisting of a color‐coded Landsat 5 classification and four color composites, were compared with geologic maps. These included a color coded, modified, unsupervised classification and contrast enhanced, color composite images using TM bands 3–2–1, 4–3–2 and 7–5–3, and the first 3 Karhunen‐Loeve transformation axes that had been generated using 7 Landsat TM bands.

The most recent of more than 70 post‐caldera flows within the caldera are trachytes, which are variably covered by shrubs and subsidiary grasses. Soil development evolves as a function of time, and as such, supports a changing plant community. Progressively older flows exhibit the increasing dominance of grasses over bushes. It was found that the Landsat images correlated well with geologic maps, but that the two mapped age classes could be further subdivided on the basis of different vegetation communities. It is concluded that field maps can be modified, and in some cases corrected by use of such imagery, and that digitally enhanced Landsat imagery can be a useful aid to field mapping in similar terrains.     

Assessing the potential of integrated Landsat 8 thermal bands,with the traditional reflective bands and derived vegetation indices in classifying urban landscapes

Reliable and up-to-date urban land cover information is valuable in urban planning and policy development. Due to the increasing demand for reliable land cover information there has been a growing need for robust methods and datasets to improve the classification accuracy from remotely sensed imagery. This study sought to assess the potential of the newly launched Landsat 8 sensor’s thermal bands and derived vegetation indices in improving land cover classification in a complex urban landscape using the support vector machine classifier. This study compared the individual and combined performance of Landsat 8’s reflective, thermal bands and vegetation indices in classifying urban land use-land cover. The integration of Landsat 8 reflective bands, derived vegetation indices and thermal bands overall produced significantly higher accuracy classification results than using traditional bands as standalone (i.e. overall, user and producer accuracies). An overall accuracy above 89.33% and a kappa index of 0.86, significantly higher than the one obtained with the use of the traditional reflective bands as a standalone data-set and other analysis stages. On average, the results also indicate high producer and user accuracies (i.e. above 80%) for most of the classes with a McNemar’s Z score of 9.00 at 95% confidence interval showing significant improvement compared with classification using reflective bands as standalone. Overall, the results of this study indicate that the integration of the Landsat 8’s OLI and TIR data presents an invaluable potential for accurate and robust land cover classification in a complex urban landscape, especially in areas where the availability of high resolution datasets remains a challenge.     

A semi-ellipsoid-model based fuzzy classifier to map grassland in Inner Mongolia,China

Remote sensing techniques offer effective means for mapping plant communities. However, mapping grassland with fine vegetative classes over large areas has been challenging for either the coarse resolutions of remotely sensed images or the high costs of acquiring images with high-resolutions. An improved hybrid-fuzzy-classifier (HFC) derived from a semi-ellipsoid-model (SEM) is developed in this paper to achieve higher accuracy for classifying grasslands with Landsat images. The Xilin River Basin, Inner Mongolia, China, is chosen as the study area, because an acceptable volume of ground truthing data was previously collected by multiple research communities. The accuracy assessment is based on the comparison of the classification outcomes from four types of image sets: (1) Landsat ETM+ August 14, 2004, (2) Landsat TM August 12, 2009, (3) the fused images of ETM+ with CBERS, and (4) TM with CBERS, respectively, and by three classifiers, the proposed HFC-SEM, the tetragonal pyramid model (TPM) based HFC, and the support vector machine method. In all twelve classification experiments, the HFC-SEM classifier had the best overall accuracy statistics. This finding indicates that the medium resolution Landsat images can be used to map grassland vegetation with good vegetative detail when the proper classifier is applied.     

基于Bayes融合法的多源遥感影像分类

提出了顾及各数据源成像模型、上下文关系模型和可靠性的基于Ｂａｙｅｓ融合分类的方法，并采用该方法对ＬａｎｄｓａｔＴＭ和航空ＳＡＲ影像进行土地利用分类试验。结果表明：同单独ＳＡＲ影像分类结果相比，融合分类法将分类精度提高了２０％。     

Evaluating SAR polarization modes at L-band for forest classification purposes in Eastern Amazon,Brazil

Single, interferometric dual, and quad-polarization mode data were evaluated for the characterization and classification of seven land use classes in an area with shifting cultivation practices located in the Eastern Amazon (Brazil). The Advanced Land-Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) data were acquired during a six month interval. A clear-sky Landsat-5/TM image acquired at the same period was used as additional ground reference and as ancillary input data in the classification scheme. We evaluated backscattering intensity, polarimetric features, interferometric coherence and texture parameters for classification purposes using support vector machines (SVM) and feature selection. Results showed that the forest classes were characterized by low temporal backscattering intensity variability, low coherence and high entropy. Quad polarization mode performed better than dual and single polarizations but overall accuracies remain low and were affected by precipitation events on the date and prior SAR date acquisition. Misclassifications were reduced by integrating Landsat data and an overall accuracy of 85% was attained. The integration of Landsat to both quad and dual polarization modes showed similarity at the 5% significance level. SVM was not affected by SAR dimensionality and feature selection technique reveals that co-polarized channels as well as SAR derived parameters such as Alpha-Entropy decomposition were important ranked features after Landsat’ near-infrared and green bands. We show that in absence of Landsat data, polarimetric features extracted from quad-polarization L-band increase classification accuracies when compared to single and dual polarization alone. We argue that the joint analysis of SAR and their derived parameters with optical data performs even better and thus encourage the further development of joint techniques under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) mechanism.     

Geospatial method for computing supplemental multi-decadal US coastal land use and land cover classification products,using Landsat data and C-CAP products

This paper discusses the development and implementation of a method that can be used with multi-decadal Landsat data for computing general coastal US land use and land cover (LULC) maps consisting of seven classes. With Mobile Bay, Alabama as the study region, the method that was applied to derive LULC products for nine dates across a 34-year time span. Classifications were computed and refined using decision rules in conjunction with unsupervised classification of Landsat data and Coastal Change and Analysis Program value-added products. Each classification’s overall accuracy was assessed by comparing stratified random locations to available high spatial resolution satellite and aerial imagery, field survey data and raw Landsat RGBs. Overall classification accuracies ranged from 83 to 91% with overall κ statistics ranging from 0.78 to 0.89. Accurate classifications were computed for all nine dates, yielding effective results regardless of season and Landsat sensor. This classification method provided useful map inputs for computing LULC change products.