6,387 research outputs found
Fusion of Heterogeneous Earth Observation Data for the Classification of Local Climate Zones
This paper proposes a novel framework for fusing multi-temporal,
multispectral satellite images and OpenStreetMap (OSM) data for the
classification of local climate zones (LCZs). Feature stacking is the most
commonly-used method of data fusion but does not consider the heterogeneity of
multimodal optical images and OSM data, which becomes its main drawback. The
proposed framework processes two data sources separately and then combines them
at the model level through two fusion models (the landuse fusion model and
building fusion model), which aim to fuse optical images with landuse and
buildings layers of OSM data, respectively. In addition, a new approach to
detecting building incompleteness of OSM data is proposed. The proposed
framework was trained and tested using data from the 2017 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion
Contest, and further validated on one additional test set containing test
samples which are manually labeled in Munich and New York. Experimental results
have indicated that compared to the feature stacking-based baseline framework
the proposed framework is effective in fusing optical images with OSM data for
the classification of LCZs with high generalization capability on a large
scale. The classification accuracy of the proposed framework outperforms the
baseline framework by more than 6% and 2%, while testing on the test set of
2017 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest and the additional test set, respectively.
In addition, the proposed framework is less sensitive to spectral diversities
of optical satellite images and thus achieves more stable classification
performance than state-of-the art frameworks.Comment: accepted by TGR
A comparison of classification techniques for monitoring and mapping land cover and land use changes in the subtropical region of Thai Nguyen, Vietnam : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Environmental Management at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Deriving land cover/land-use information from earth observation satellite data is one of the
most common applications for environmental monitoring, evaluation and management. Many
parametric and non-parametric classification algorithms have been developed and applied to
such applications. This study looks at the classification accuracies of three algorithms for
different spatial and spectral resolution data. The performance of Random Forest (RF) was
compared to Maximum Likelihood (MLC) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithms
for the separation of subtropical land cover/land-use categories using Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8
data. The overall, producers’ and users’ accuracies were derived from the confusion matrix,
while local land use statistics were also collected to evaluate the accuracy of classified images.
The accuracy assessment showed the RF algorithm regularly outperformed the MLC and ANN
in both types of imagery data (>90%). This approach also exhibited potential in dealing with
the challenge of separating similar man-made features such as urban/built-up and mining
extraction classes. The ANN algorithm had the lowest accuracy among the three classification
algorithms, while Landsat 8 imagery was most suitable for the classification of subtropical
mixed and complex landscapes.
As the RF algorithm demonstrated a robustness and potential for mapping subtropical land
cover/land-use, this study chose it to monitor and map temporal land cover/land-use changes
in Thai Nguyen, Vietnam between 2000 and 2016. The results of this temporal monitoring
revealed that there were substantial changes in land cover/land use over the course of 16 years.
Agricultural and forest land decreased, while urban and mining extraction land expanded
significantly, and water increased slightly. Changes in land cover/land-use are strongly
associated with geographic locations. The conversion of agriculture and forest into urban/builtup
and mining extraction land was detected largely in the Thai Nguyen central city and southern
regions. In addition, further GIS analysis revealed that approximately 69.6% (100.2km2) of new built-up areas had occurred within 2km of primary roads, and nearly 96% (137.6km2) of new built-up expansion was detected within a 5-km buffer of the main roads. This study also demonstrates the potential of multi-temporal Landsat data and the combination of remote sensing, GIS and R programming to provide a timely, accurate and economical means to map and analyse temporal changes for long-term local land use development planning.
Keywords: Random forest; Land cover mapping; Remote Sensing; Vietna
Mapping Europe into local climate zones
Cities are major drivers of environmental change at all scales and are especially at risk from the ensuing effects, which include poor air quality, flooding and heat waves. Typically, these issues are studied on a city-by-city basis owing to the spatial complexity of built landscapes, local topography and emission patterns. However, to ensure knowledge sharing and to integrate local-scale processes with regional and global scale modelling initiatives, there is a pressing need for a world-wide database on cities that is suited for environmental studies. In this paper we present a European database that has a particular focus on characterising urbanised landscapes. It has been derived using tools and techniques developed as part of the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) project, which has the goal of acquiring and disseminating climate-relevant information on cities worldwide. The European map is the first major step toward creating a global database on cities that can be integrated with existing topographic and natural land-cover databases to support modelling initiatives
The role of earth observation in an integrated deprived area mapping “system” for low-to-middle income countries
Urbanization in the global South has been accompanied by the proliferation of vast informal and marginalized urban areas that lack access to essential services and infrastructure. UN-Habitat estimates that close to a billion people currently live in these deprived and informal urban settlements, generally grouped under the term of urban slums. Two major knowledge gaps undermine the efforts to monitor progress towards the corresponding sustainable development goal (i.e., SDG 11—Sustainable Cities and Communities). First, the data available for cities worldwide is patchy and insufficient to differentiate between the diversity of urban areas with respect to their access to essential services and their specific infrastructure needs. Second, existing approaches used to map deprived areas (i.e., aggregated household data, Earth observation (EO), and community-driven data collection) are mostly siloed, and, individually, they often lack transferability and scalability and fail to include the opinions of different interest groups. In particular, EO-based-deprived area mapping approaches are mostly top-down, with very little attention given to ground information and interaction with urban communities and stakeholders. Existing top-down methods should be complemented with bottom-up approaches to produce routinely updated, accurate, and timely deprived area maps. In this review, we first assess the strengths and limitations of existing deprived area mapping methods. We then propose an Integrated Deprived Area Mapping System (IDeAMapS) framework that leverages the strengths of EO- and community-based approaches. The proposed framework offers a way forward to map deprived areas globally, routinely, and with maximum accuracy to support SDG 11 monitoring and the needs of different interest groups
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