Multitemporal settlement and population mapping from Landsat using Google Earth Engine

As countries become increasingly urbanized, understanding how urban areas are changing within the landscape becomes increasingly important. Urbanized areas are often the strongest indicators of human interaction with the environment, and understanding how urban areas develop through remotely sensed data allows for more sustainable practices. The Google Earth Engine (GEE) leverages cloud computing services to provide analysis capabilities on over 40 years of Landsat data. As a remote sensing platform, its ability to analyze global data rapidly lends itself to being an invaluable tool for studying the growth of urban areas. Here we present (i) An approach for the automated extraction of urban areas from Landsat imagery using GEE, validated using higher resolution images, (ii) a novel method of validation of the extracted urban extents using changes in the statistical performance of a high resolution population mapping method. Temporally distinct urban extractions were classified from the GEE catalog of Landsat 5 and 7 data over the Indonesian island of Java by using a Normalized Difference Spectral Vector (NDSV) method. Statistical evaluation of all of the tests was performed, and the value of population mapping methods in validating these urban extents was also examined. Results showed that the automated classification from GEE produced accurate urban extent maps, and that the integration of GEE-derived urban extents also improved the quality of the population mapping outputs.     

Fusing MODIS with Landsat 8 data to downscale weekly normalized difference vegetation index estimates for central Great Basin rangelands,USA

Data fused from distinct but complementary satellite sensors mitigate tradeoffs that researchers make when selecting between spatial and temporal resolutions of remotely sensed data. We integrated data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor aboard the Terra satellite and the Operational Land Imager sensor aboard the Landsat 8 satellite into four regression-tree models and applied those data to a mapping application. This application produced downscaled maps that utilize the 30-m spatial resolution of Landsat in conjunction with daily acquisitions of MODIS normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) that are composited and temporally smoothed. We produced four weekly, atmospherically corrected, and nearly cloud-free, downscaled 30-m synthetic MODIS NDVI predictions (maps) built from these models. Model results were strong with R² values ranging from 0.74 to 0.85. The correlation coefficients (r ≥ 0.89) were strong for all predictions when compared to corresponding original MODIS NDVI data. Downscaled products incorporated into independently developed sagebrush ecosystem models yielded mixed results. The visual quality of the downscaled 30-m synthetic MODIS NDVI predictions were remarkable when compared to the original 250-m MODIS NDVI. These 30-m maps improve knowledge of dynamic rangeland seasonal processes in the central Great Basin, United States, and provide land managers improved resource maps.     

Retrieval of remotely sensed LAI using Landsat ETM+ data and ground measurements of solar radiation and vegetation structure: Implication of leaf inclination angle

A time series of leaf area index (LAI) of a managed birch forest in Germany (near Dresden) has been developed based on 16-day normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data from the Landsat ETM+ sensor at 30 m resolution. The Landsat ETM+ LAI was retrieved using a modified physical radiative transfer (RTM) model which establishes a relationship between LAI, fractional vegetation cover (fC), and given patterns of surface reflectance, view-illumination conditions and optical properties of vegetation. In situ measurements of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and vegetation structure parameters using hemispherical photography (HSP) served for calibration of model parameters, while data from litter collection at the study site provided the ground-based estimates of LAI for validation of modelling results. Influence of view-illumination conditions on optical properties of canopy was simulated by a view angle geometry model incorporating the solar zenith angle and the sensor viewing angle. Effects of intra-annual and inter-annual variability of structural properties of the canopy on the light extinction coefficient were simulated by implementing variability of the leaf inclination angle (LIA), which was confirmed in the study site. The results revealed good compatibility of the produced Landsat ETM+ LAI data set with the litter-estimated LAI. The results also showed high sensitivity of the LAI retrieval algorithm to variability of structural properties of the canopy: the implementation of LIA dynamics into the LAI retrieval algorithm significantly improved the model accuracy.     

Land cover classification of finer resolution remote sensing data integrating temporal features from time series coarser resolution data

Land cover classification of finer resolution remote sensing data is always difficult to acquire high-frequency time series data which contains temporal features for improving classification accuracy. This paper proposed a method of land cover classification with finer resolution remote sensing data integrating temporal features extracted from time series coarser resolution data. The coarser resolution vegetation index data is first fused with finer resolution data to obtain time series finer resolution data. Temporal features are extracted from the fused data and added to improve classification accuracy. The result indicates that temporal features extracted from coarser resolution data have significant effect on improving classification accuracy of finer resolution data, especially for vegetation types. The overall classification accuracy is significantly improved approximately 4% from 90.4% to 94.6% and 89.0% to 93.7% for using Landsat 8 and Landsat 5 data, respectively. The user and producer accuracies for all land cover types have been improved.     

TM影像几何校正算法的精度比较

同大多数的线阵推扫式影像相比,TM影像作为双向扫描型的影像其几何校正方法有其特殊性和复杂性。针对这个问题,本文简要介绍了一般多项式、空间斜墨卡托投影、有理函数模型等几种几何近似校正算法,并利用广州地区的TM影像进行了各种试验分析和精度比较。结果表明:同其他方法相比,空间斜墨卡托投影是一种较好的算法,校正精度最高,能够达到一个像素左右,而且该方法不受地形起伏的影响,无需地面高程信息。     

基于TM遥感数据的汶川地震极重灾区生态恢复研究

本文以地震极重灾区2006、2008和2011年3期Landsat TM遥感影像为数据源,利用GIS提取灾区土地利用信息,结合坡度和高程等地形因子对灾区主要生态系统面积的变化进行综合分析.结果表明:2008年地震对灾区生态环境造成严重破坏,使研究区农田、森林和草地生态系统分别减少了124.6km2、461.6km2和9...     

AN AUTOMATIC PROCEDURE FOR ESTIMATING SPRING SMALL GRAINS ACREAGE FROM LANDSAT DATA

The development and testing of a computerized technique for utilizing multitemporal Landsat multispectral scanner data to estimate spring small grains acreage are described. The Kauth-Thomas green number transformation is applied to the data prior to application of the pixel-level standardized logic. Four years of data from the U.S. and Canada are used in testing. A comparison of the test results to those of the analyst-intensive procedures indicates a potential for increase in near-harvest estimation efficiency with little sacrifice in accuracy.     

Irrigated area determination: a case study in the Province of San Juan,Argentina

Much of the central-western region of Argentina, where San Juan Province is located, experiences arid to semi-arid climatic conditions with low average annual rainfall accompanied by substantial evapotranspiration. Consequently, a viable crop industry depends to a large extent upon irrigation from major river systems. Increasing demand for water in the lower basin of the San Juan River is emphasizing the need for more accurate estimates of water used for irrigation. Since the water demand for a particular crop is very closely related to crop area, monitoring the area of crop under irrigation is considered a proxy for the amount of water used. Landsat 5 imagery for the growing season, field data and aerial photographs were used to evaluate crop area.     

Evaluating land cover changes in Eastern and Southern Africa from 2000 to 2010 using validated Landsat and MODIS data

In this study, we assessed land cover land use (LCLU) changes and their potential environmental drivers (i.e., precipitation, temperature) in five countries in Eastern & Southern (E&S) Africa (Rwanda, Botswana, Tanzania, Malawi and Namibia) between 2000 and 2010. Landsat-derived LCLU products developed by the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) through the SERVIR (Spanish for “to serve”) program, a joint initiative of NASA and USAID, and NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data were used to evaluate and quantify the LCLU changes in these five countries. Given that the original development of the MODIS land cover type standard products included limited training sites in Africa, we performed a two-level verification/validation of the MODIS land cover product in these five countries. Precipitation data from CHIRPS dataset were used to evaluate and quantify the precipitation changes in these countries and see if it was a significant driver behind some of these LCLU changes. MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST) data were also used to see if temperature was a main driver too.Our validation analysis revealed that the overall accuracies of the regional MODIS LCLU product for this African region alone were lower than that of the global MODIS LCLU product overall accuracy (63–66% vs. 75%). However, for countries with uniform or homogenous land cover, the overall accuracy was much higher than the global accuracy and as high as 87% and 78% for Botswana and Namibia, respectively. In addition, the wetland and grassland classes had the highest user’s accuracies in most of the countries (89%–99%), which are the ones with the highest number of MODIS land cover classification algorithm training sites.Our LCLU change analysis revealed that Botswana’s most significant changes were the net reforestation, net grass loss and net wetland expansion. For Rwanda, although there have been significant forest, grass and crop expansions in some areas, there also have been significant forest, grass and crop loss in other areas that resulted in very minimal net changes. As for Tanzania, its most significant changes were the net deforestation and net crop expansion. Malawi’s most significant changes were the net deforestation, net crop expansion, net grass expansion and net wetland loss. Finally, Namibia’s most significant changes were the net deforestation and net grass expansion.The only noticeable environmental driver was in Malawi, which had a significant net wetland loss and could be due to the fact that it was the only country that had a reduction in total precipitation between the periods when the LCLU maps were developed. Not only that, but Malawi also happened to have a slight increase in temperature, which would cause more evaporation and net decrease in wetlands if the precipitation didn’t increase as was the case in that country. In addition, within our studied countries, forestland expansion and loss as well as crop expansion and loss were happening in the same country almost equally in some cases. All of that implies that non-environmental factors, such as socioeconomics and governmental policies, could have been the main drivers of these LCLU changes in many of these countries in E&S Africa. It will be important to further study in the future the detailed effects of such drivers on these LCLU changes in this part of the world.     

Night on Earth: Mapping decadal changes of anthropogenic night light in Asia

The defense meteorological satellite program (DMSP) operational linescan system (OLS) sensors have imaged emitted light from Earth's surface since the 1970s. Temporal overlap in the missions of 5 OLS sensors allows for intercalibration of the annual composites over the past 19 years (Elvidge et al., 2009). The resulting image time series captures a spatiotemporal signature of the growth and evolution of lighted human settlements and development. We use empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis and the temporal feature space to characterize and quantify patterns of temporal change in stable night light brightness and spatial extent since 1992. Temporal EOF analysis provides a statistical basis for representing spatially abundant temporal patterns in the image time series as uncorrelated vectors of brightness as a function of time from 1992 to 2009. The variance partition of the eigenvalue spectrum combined with temporal structure of the EOFs and spatial structure of the PCs provides a basis for distinguishing between deterministic multi-year trends and stochastic year-to-year variance. The low order EOFs and principal components (PC) space together discriminate both earlier (1990s) and later (2000s) increases and decreases in brightness. Inverse transformation of these low order dimensions reduces stochastic variance sufficiently so that tri-temporal composites depict potentially deterministic decadal trends. The most pronounced changes occur in Asia. At critical brightness threshold we find an 18% increase in the number of spatially distinct lights and an 80% increase in lighted area in southern and eastern Asia between 1992 and 2009. During this time both China and India experienced a ∼20% increase in number of lights and a ∼270% increase in lighted area – although the timing of the increase is later in China than in India. Throughout Asia a variety of different patterns of brightness increase are apparent in tri-temporal brightness composites – as well as some conspicuous areas of apparently decreasing background luminance and, in many places, intermittent light suggesting development of infrastructure rather than persistently lighted development. Vicarious validation using higher resolution Landsat imagery verifies multiple phases of urban growth in several cities as well as the consistent presence of low DN (<∼15) background luminance for many agricultural areas. Lights also allow us to quantify changes in the size distribution and connectedness of different intensities of development. Over a wide range of brightnesses, the size distributions of spatially contiguous lighted area are consistent with power laws with exponents near −1 as predicted by Zipf's Law for cities. However, the larger lighted segments are much larger than individual cities; they correspond to vast spatial networks of contiguous development (Small et al., 2011).