Evaluating the relationship between biomass,percent groundcover and remote sensing indices across six winter cover crop fields in Maryland,United States

Winter cover crops are an essential part of managing nutrient and sediment losses from agricultural lands. Cover crops lessen sedimentation by reducing erosion, and the accumulation of nitrogen in aboveground biomass results in reduced nutrient runoff. Winter cover crops are planted in the fall and are usually terminated in early spring, making them susceptible to senescence, frost burn, and leaf yellowing due to wintertime conditions. This study sought to determine to what extent remote sensing indices are capable of accurately estimating the percent groundcover and biomass of winter cover crops, and to analyze under what critical ranges these relationships are strong and under which conditions they break down. Cover crop growth on six fields planted to barley, rye, ryegrass, triticale or wheat was measured over the 2012–2013 winter growing season. Data collection included spectral reflectance measurements, aboveground biomass, and percent groundcover. Ten vegetation indices were evaluated using surface reflectance data from a 16-band CROPSCAN sensor. Restricting analysis to sampling dates before the onset of prolonged freezing temperatures and leaf yellowing resulted in increased estimation accuracy. There was a strong relationship between the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and percent groundcover (r² = 0.93) suggesting that date restrictions effectively eliminate yellowing vegetation from analysis. The triangular vegetation index (TVI) was most accurate in estimating high ranges of biomass (r² = 0.86), while NDVI did not experience a clustering of values in the low and medium biomass ranges but saturated in the higher range (>1500 kg/ha). The results of this study show that accounting for index saturation, senescence, and frost burn on leaves can greatly increase the accuracy of estimates of percent groundcover and biomass for winter cover crops.     

Detecting tents to estimate the displaced populations for post-disaster relief using high resolution satellite imagery

Estimating the number of refugees and internally displaced persons is important for planning and managing an efficient relief operation following disasters and conflicts. Accurate estimates of refugee numbers can be inferred from the number of tents. Extracting tents from high-resolution satellite imagery has recently been suggested. However, it is still a significant challenge to extract tents automatically and reliably from remote sensing imagery. This paper describes a novel automated method, which is based on mathematical morphology, to generate a camp map to estimate the refugee numbers by counting tents on the camp map. The method is especially useful in detecting objects with a clear shape, size, and significant spectral contrast with their surroundings. Results for two study sites with different satellite sensors and different spatial resolutions demonstrate that the method achieves good performance in detecting tents. The overall accuracy can be up to 81% in this study. Further improvements should be possible if over-identified isolated single pixel objects can be filtered. The performance of the method is impacted by spectral characteristics of satellite sensors and image scenes, such as the extent of area of interest and the spatial arrangement of tents. It is expected that the image scene would have a much higher influence on the performance of the method than the sensor characteristics.     

Assessing the utility WorldView-2 imagery for tree species mapping in South African subtropical humid forest and the conservation implications: Dukuduku forest patch as case study

Indigenous forest biome in South Africa is highly fragmented into patches of various sizes (most patches < 1 km²). The utilization of timber and non-timber resources by poor rural communities living around protected forest patches produce subtle changes in the forest canopy which can be hardly detected on a timely manner using traditional field surveys. The aims of this study were to assess: (i) the utility of very high resolution (VHR) remote sensing imagery (WorldView-2, 0.5–2 m spatial resolution) for mapping tree species and canopy gaps in one of the protected subtropical coastal forests in South Africa (the Dukuduku forest patch (ca.3200 ha) located in the province of KwaZulu-Natal) and (ii) the implications of the map products to forest conservation. Three dominant canopy tree species namely, Albizia adianthifolia, Strychnos spp. and Acacia spp., and canopy gap types including bushes (grass/shrubby), bare soil and burnt patches were accurately mapped (overall accuracy = 89.3 ± 2.1%) using WorldView-2 image and support vector machine classifier. The maps revealed subtle forest disturbances such as bush encroachment and edge effects resulting from forest fragmentation by roads and a power-line. In two stakeholders’ workshops organised to assess the implications of the map products to conservation, participants generally agreed amongst others implications that the VHR maps provide valuable information that could be used for implementing and monitoring the effects of rehabilitation measures. The use of VHR imagery is recommended for timely inventorying and monitoring of the small and fragile patches of subtropical forests in Southern Africa.     

Evaluating the feasibility of multitemporal hyperspectral remote sensing for monitoring bioremediation

In recent years, several studies focused on the detection of hydrocarbon pollution in the environment using hyperspectral remote sensing. Particularly the indirect detection of hydrocarbon pollution, using vegetation reflectance in the red edge region, has been studied extensively. Bioremediation is one of the methods that can be applied to clean up polluted sites. So far, there have been no studies on monitoring of bioremediation using (hyperspectral) remote sensing. This study evaluates the feasibility of hyperspectral remote sensing for monitoring the effect of bioremediation over time. Benzene leakage at connection points along a pipeline was monitored by comparing the red edge position (REP) in 2005 and 2008 using HyMap airborne hyperspectral images. REP values were normalized in order to enhance local variations caused by a change in benzene concentrations. 11 out of 17 locations were classified correctly as remediated, still polluted, or still clean, with a total accuracy of 65%. When only polluted locations that were remediated were taken into account, the (user's) accuracy was 71%.     

Wavelet-based detection of bush encroachment in a savanna using multi-temporal aerial photographs and satellite imagery

Although increased woody plant abundance has been reported in tropical savannas worldwide, techniques for detecting the direction and magnitude of change are mostly based on visual interpretation of historical aerial photography or textural analysis of multi-temporal satellite images. These techniques are prone to human error and do not permit integration of remotely sensed data from diverse sources. Here, we integrate aerial photographs with high spatial resolution satellite imagery and use a discrete wavelet transform to objectively detect the dynamics in bush encroachment at two protected Zimbabwean savanna sites. Based on the recently introduced intensity-dominant scale approach, we test the hypotheses that: (1) the encroachment of woody patches into the surrounding grassland matrix causes a shift in the dominant scale. This shift in the dominant scale can be detected using a discrete wavelet transform regardless of whether aerial photography and satellite data are used; and (2) as the woody patch size stabilises, woody cover tends to increase thereby triggering changes in intensity. The results show that at the first site where tree patches were already established (Lake Chivero Game Reserve), between 1972 and 1984 the dominant scale of woody patches initially increased from 8 m before stabilising at 16 m and 32 m between 1984 and 2012 while the intensity fluctuated during the same period. In contrast, at the second site, which was formely grass-dominated site (Kyle Game Reserve), we observed an unclear dominant scale (1972) which later becomes distinct in 1985, 1996 and 2012. Over the same period, the intensity increased. Our results imply that using our approach we can detect and quantify woody/bush patch dynamics in savanna landscapes.     

Global rain-fed,irrigated, and paddy croplands: A new high resolution map derived from remote sensing,crop inventories and climate data

Irrigation accounts for 70% of global water use by humans and 33–40% of global food production comes from irrigated croplands. Accurate and timely information related to global irrigation is therefore needed to manage increasingly scarce water resources and to improve food security in the face of yield gaps, climate change and extreme events such as droughts, floods, and heat waves. Unfortunately, this information is not available for many regions of the world. This study aims to improve characterization of global rain-fed, irrigated and paddy croplands by integrating information from national and sub-national surveys, remote sensing, and gridded climate data sets. To achieve this goal, we used supervised classification of remote sensing, climate, and agricultural inventory data to generate a global map of irrigated, rain-fed, and paddy croplands. We estimate that 314 million hectares (Mha) worldwide were irrigated circa 2005. This includes 66 Mha of irrigated paddy cropland and 249 Mha of irrigated non-paddy cropland. Additionally, we estimate that 1047 Mha of cropland are managed under rain-fed conditions, including 63 Mha of rain-fed paddy cropland and 985 Mha of rain-fed non-paddy cropland. More generally, our results show that global mapping of irrigated, rain-fed, and paddy croplands is possible by combining information from multiple data sources. However, regions with rapidly changing irrigation or complex mixtures of irrigated and non-irrigated crops present significant challenges and require more and better data to support high quality mapping of irrigation.     

安徽省含山县土地整理耕地质量评价及其变化研究

土地整理是改善土地利用条件,提高土地质量的有效措施,对土地整理后的耕地质量进行评价是土地整理重要工作之一。从耕地质量的内涵和土地整理项目的基本要求出发,选取耕地自然条件和耕地利用条件2个基本因素和12个影响因子,将特尔斐法与层次分析法相结合,确定各因子权重,构建基于土地整理的耕地质量评价指标体系。以安徽省含山县铜闸镇土地整理项目为例,采用传统的土壤调查与3S技术相结合的方法,分析土地整理复垦过程中耕地质量时空格局变化,得出整理前、后耕地质量的级别变化。研究结果表明,通过土地整理,研究区的耕地质量空间分布和级别发生了很大变化,整理后一级、二级、三级质量的土地比整理前分别增加了7.20%,11.95%和0.65%,四级、五级则分别减少了15.65%和4.16%,整理后的耕地质量总体水平是整理前的1.291倍。     

基于遥感技术的近30年中亚地区主要湖泊变化

在全球气候变暖的背景下,研究中亚干旱半干旱地区主要湖泊的变化不仅对内陆水资源管理和可持续发展有着重要意义,也为进一步研究湖泊变化对气候变化和人类活动的响应提供基础。获取1978年MSS、1989年TM、1998年TM及2010年ETM的同季相4期遥感图像数据,通过人工解译提取中亚地区7个湖泊信息,获得近30 a的湖泊面积变化;利用T/P和Envisat雷达高度计提取1992—2012年的湖泊水位信息;基于湖泊面积和水位的时空变化特征分析了湖泊变化的影响因素。结果表明:近30 a来,由于湖泊类型的不同,除萨雷卡梅什湖外的其他6个湖泊均出现不同程度的面积缩减;其中,平原尾闾湖面积变化最显著,高山封闭湖相对平稳,吞吐湖泊的面积变化相对复杂;湖泊的水位变化模式因流域和湖泊类型而异;高山封闭湖泊受气候的影响较大,而吞吐湖泊受人为因素影响显著。     

视觉感受与Markov随机场相结合的高分辨率遥感影像分割法

鉴于视觉感受对外界强大的感知与识别能力,模拟视觉神经感知的工作机制,并结合Markov随机场模型,提出一种影像分割方法。首先,分析视觉感知系统的工作机制,将其特性归纳为等级层次性、学习能力、特征检测能力和稀疏编码特性,继而利用小波变换、非监督聚类、特征分析和Laplace分布模拟视觉工作机制,然后结合Markov随机场模型实现高分辨率遥感影像的分割。通过不同卫星的真实遥感影像进行了相关试验。试验结果表明本文提出的方法在高分辨率遥感影像分割任务中有非常良好的表现。