297 research outputs found
Aboveground Biomass Retrieval in Tropical and Boreal Forests Using L-Band Airborne Polarimetric Observations
Forests play a crucial part in regulating global climate change since their aboveground biomass (AGB) relates to the carbon cycle, and its changes affect the main carbon pools. At present, the most suitable available SAR data for wall-to-wall forest AGB estimation are exploiting an L-band polarimetric SAR. However, the saturation issues were reported for AGB estimation using L-band backscatter coefficients. Saturation varies depending on forest structure. Polarimetric information has the capability to identify different aspects of forest structure and therefore shows great potential for reducing saturation issues and improving estimation accuracy. In this study, 121 polarimetric decomposition observations, 10 polarimetric backscatter coefficients and their derived observations, and six texture features were extracted and applied for forest AGB estimation in a tropical forest and a boreal forest. A parametric feature optimization inversion model (Multiple linear stepwise regression, MSLR) and a nonparametric feature optimization inversion model (fast iterative procedure integrated into a K-nearest neighbor nonparameter algorithm, KNNFIFS) were used for polarimetric features optimization and forest AGB inversion. The results demonstrated the great potential of L-band polarimetric features for forest AGB estimation. KNNFIFS performed better both in tropical (R2 = 0.80, RMSE = 22.55 Mg/ha, rRMSE = 14.59%, MA%E = 12.21%) and boreal (R2 = 0.74, RMSE = 19.82 Mg/ha, rRMSE = 20.86%, MA%E = 20.19%) forests. Non-model-based polarimetric features performed better compared to features extracted by backscatter coefficients, model-based decompositions, and texture. Polarimetric observations also revealed site-dependent performances
Estimating optical vegetation indices with Sentinel-1 SAR data and AutoML
Current optical vegetation indices (VIs) for monitoring forest ecosystems are
widely used in various applications. However, continuous monitoring based on
optical satellite data can be hampered by atmospheric effects such as clouds.
On the contrary, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data can offer insightful and
systematic forest monitoring with complete time series due to signal
penetration through clouds and day and night acquisitions. The goal of this
work is to overcome the issues affecting optical data with SAR data and serve
as a substitute for estimating optical VIs for forests using machine learning.
Time series of four VIs (LAI, FAPAR, EVI and NDVI) were estimated using
multitemporal Sentinel-1 SAR and ancillary data. This was enabled by creating a
paired multi-temporal and multi-modal dataset in Google Earth Engine (GEE),
including temporally and spatially aligned Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, digital
elevation model (DEM), weather and land cover datasets (MMT-GEE). The use of
ancillary features generated from DEM and weather data improved the results.
The open-source Automatic Machine Learning (AutoML) approach, auto-sklearn,
outperformed Random Forest Regression for three out of four VIs, while a 1-hour
optimization length was enough to achieve sufficient results with an R2 of
69-84% low errors (0.05-0.32 of MAE depending on VI). Great agreement was also
found for selected case studies in the time series analysis and in the spatial
comparison between the original and estimated SAR-based VIs. In general,
compared to VIs from currently freely available optical satellite data and
available global VI products, a better temporal resolution (up to 240
measurements/year) and a better spatial resolution (20 m) were achieved using
estimated SAR-based VIs. A great advantage of the SAR-based VI is the ability
to detect abrupt forest changes with a sub-weekly temporal accuracy.Comment: Full research article. 30 pages, 13 figures, 8 table
Explotación sinérgica de datos multiespectrales y radar para la estimación de variables biofísicas de la vegetación mediante tecnologías de sensoramiento remoto
Las variables biofísicas de la vegetación (VBV) son indicadores directos del crecimiento y productividad de los cultivos. Los sistemas de observación de la Tierra (EO–Earth observation) presentan oportunidades sin precedentes para el monitoreo de las variables biofísicas del trigo. Sentinel–2 (S2) es una constelación de satélites que forma parte de las misiones Sentinel del programa Copernicus de EO. El período de revisita, así como su resolución espacial y espectral, han convertido a S2 en un sistema de EO trascendental para el monitoreo de VBV. Los sistemas ópticos de EO se ven limitados con frecuencia por las condiciones climáticas tales como nubosidad o precipitaciones. En este sentido, la tecnología radar, presenta nuevas oportunidades para el monitoreo de VBV que deben explorarse en profundidad. Sentinel–1 (S1) es una constelación radar de la familia Sentinel. Debido a la complejidad de la interacción de la señal radar con las superficies cultivadas y al ruido aditivo inherente de speckle, la estimación de VBV con tecnología radar aún sigue siendo un desafío. El objetivo de esta tesis doctoral es desarrollar modelos de estimación de variables biofísicas del trigo, en una zona irrigada de cultivo intensivo al sureste de Argentina, basados en medidas in situ de la vegetación, a partir de: i) datos multiespectrales de S2; ii) datos radar de S1; y iii) la sinergia S1 & S2. Para abordar la problemática planteada, se desarrollaron en primer lugar, modelos de estimación del índice de área foliar, del contenido de clorofila de la cubierta vegetal y del contenido de agua del trigo, utilizando una base de datos multitemporal de VBV tomadas in situ, algoritmos de aprendizaje automático, una base de datos de espectros de reflectividad bidireccional de la vegetación simulados con un modelo de transferencia radiativa y datos multiespectrales de S2. Se obtuvieron modelos híbridos de estimación de estas VBV que se ajustaron con alta precisión a los datos de campo y se logró reconstruir con éxito la curva fenológica del cultivo de trigo. En segundo lugar, se implementó un modelo de estimación de LAI basado en datos radar de S1 adquiridos en diferentes geometrías de adquisición. Se probó que la estructura tridimensional de la vegetación cuando es observada desde ángulos de incidencia local diferentes proporciona información muy valiosa que puede ser utilizada para mejorar los modelos existentes. Por último, se desarrolló una estrategia de fusión de datos de S1 & S2 para reconstruir series temporales de VWC. Se aplicaron varios modelos de procesos Gaussianos de salidas múltiples para analizar la correlación cruzada existente, en el dominio de la frecuencia, entre los canales ópticos y radar. La combinación sinérgica de datos radar y ópticos mostró ser un novedoso enfoque para abordar el monitoreo de variables biofísicas del trigo en regiones intensamente cultivadas con frecuente nubosidad
Surface soil moisture estimate from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data in agricultural fields in areas of high vulnerability to climate variations: the Marche region (Italy) case study
Surface soil moisture is a key hydrologic state variable that greatly influences the global environment and human society. Its significant decrease in the Mediterranean region, registered since the 1950s, and expected to continue in the next century, threatens soil health and crops. Microwave remote sensing techniques are becoming a key tool for the implementation of climate-smart agriculture, as a means for surface soil moisture retrieval that exploits the correlation between liquid water and the dielectric properties of soil. In this study, a workflow in Google Earth Engine was developed to estimate surface soil moisture in the agricultural fields of the Marche region (Italy) through Synthetic Aperture Radar data. Firstly, agricultural areas were extracted with both Sentinel-2 optical and Sentinel-1 radar satellites, investigating the use of Dual-Polarimetric Entropy-Alpha decomposition's bands to improve the accuracy of radar data classification. The results show that Entropy and Alpha bands improve the kappa index obtained from the radar data only by 4% (K = 0.818), exceeding optical accuracy in urban and water areas. However, they still did not allow to reach the overall optical accuracy (K = 0.927). The best classification results are reached with the total dataset (K = 0.949). Subsequently, Water Cloud and Tu Wien models were implemented on the crop areas using calibration parameters derived from literature, to test if an acceptable accuracy is reached without in situ observation. While the first model’s accuracy was inadequate (RMSD = 12.3), the extraction of surface soil moisture using Tu Wien change detection method was found to have acceptable accuracy (RMSD = 9.4)
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Quantification of regional carbon stocks in the ecoregions of Cross River State, Nigeria
Quantification of above-ground biomass over the Cross River State, Nigeria using Sentinel 2 data: Higher-resolution wall-to-wall carbon monitoring in tropical Africa across a range of woodland types is necessary in reducing uncertainty in the global carbon budget and improving accounting for REDD+. This study uses Sentinel-2 multispectral imagery combined with climatic and edaphic variables to estimate the regional distribution of above-ground biomass (AGB) for the year 2020 over the CRS, a tropical forest region in Nigeria, using the Random Forest (RF) machine learning. Forest Inventory plots were collected over the whole state for training and testing of the RF algorithm, and spread over undisturbed and disturbed tropical forests, and woodlands in croplands and plantations. The maximum plot AGB was estimated to be 588 t/ha with an average of 121.98 t/ha across the entire CRS. The AGB was estimated using Random Forest and yielded an R2 of 0.88, RMSE of 40.9 t/ha, a relRMSE of 30 %, bias of +7.5 t/ha and a total woody AGB of 0.246 Pg for CRS. These results compare favourably to previous tropical AGB products; with total AGB of 0.290, 0.253, 0.330 and 0.124 Pg, relRMSE of 49.69, 57.09, 24.06 56.24 % and -41, -48, -17 t/ha bias over the CRS for the Saatchi, Baccini, Avitabile and ESA CCI maps respectively. These are all compared to the current REDD+ estimate of total AGB over the Cross River State of 0.268 Pg. This study shows that obtaining independent reference plot datasets, from a variety of woodland cover types, can reduce uncertainties in local to regional AGB estimation compared with those products which have limited tropical African and Nigerian woodland reference plots. Though REDD+ biomass in the region is relatively larger than the estimates of this study, REDD+ provided only regional biomass rather than pixel-based biomass and used estimated tree height rather than the actual tree height measurement in the field. These may cast doubt on the accuracy of the estimated biomass by REDD+. These give the biomass map of this current study a comparative advantage over others. The 20 m wall-to-wall biomass map of this study could be used as a baseline for REDD+ Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting for equitable distribution of payment for carbon protection benefits and its management.
Digital mapping of soil organic carbon from sentinel-2 data in the tropical ecosystem of Cross River State, southeast-Nigeria: Digital mapping of Soil organic carbon (SOC) is fundamental in achieving the mandates of the REDD project. As an essential climate variable, SOC is a constituent of the ecological system that supports chemical, biological and physical processes and can be used to infer the quality of the ecosystem. In Nigeria, estimates revealed that 40 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions comes from the forestry and land use sector. On the strength of this, the quantification of the total SOC stock in CRS Nigeria, will aid in putting in place land use policies that will achieve the twin goal of SOC protection and enhance the living conditions of those whose livelihood is nature dependent. This study used random forest (RF) regression; a machine learning algorithm to identify key predictors of SOC through the integration of field, Sentinel 2A (S2) derived vegetation indices, selected reanalysis climate variables with topography. Three land cover types (LCTs); undisturbed, disturbed and croplands were purposively mapped out, and 72 soil samples collected at soil depth of 20 cm across the study area. 70 % of points data were used to train the RF model while the remaining 30 % was used to validate the predicted SOC model. We estimated 0.147 Pg with mean of 72.94 t/ha of SOC compared to African Soil Information Service (fSIS) 0.124 Pg and Innovative Solution for Digital Agriculture (ISDA) 0.217 Pg of SOC over the area. Model analysis indicates that key predictors (topography, rainfall, maximum air temperature, OSAVI, EVI and NDVI) achieved a high prediction accuracy with lower uncertainty unlike the global and continental SOC maps over the study area (R2 of 0.82, RMSE of 22.54 (t/ha), and uncertainty of 39.4 % compared to AfSIS; RMSE=35.29 t/ha, uncertainty=61.69 % and iSDA; RMSE= 38.58 t/ha, uncertainty=57.21 %). Our results showed lower uncertainty compared to the coarse spatial resolution maps of AfSIS (30 m) and ISDA (250 m). The final model output was used to spatialize the SOC distribution across the CRS subregion using ArcGIS package. The 20 m resolution SOC map of this study could be referenced in the REDD+ Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting for equitable distribution of payment for carbon protection benefits and its management.
Livelihood impacts of forest carbon protection in the context of redd+ in Cross River State, southeast Nigeria: The rate of landcover change linked to deforestation and forest degradation in tropical environments has continued to surge despite series of forest governance policy instruments over the years. These informed the launch of one of the most important international policies called Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (REDD+) to combat forest destruction. REDD+ assumes that communities will have increased access to natural capital which will enhance their livelihood portfolio and mitigate the effects of climate variability and change across biomes. The aim of this study is to ascertain the livelihoods impacts of forest carbon protection within the context of REDD+ in Cross River State, Nigeria. Six forest communities were chosen across three agroecological zones of the State. Anchored on the Sustainable Livelihood Framework, a set of questionnaires were administered to randomly picked households. The results indicate that more than half of the respondents aligned with financial payment and more natural resources as the perceived benefits of carbon protection. More so, a multinomial logistic regression showed that income was the main factor that influenced respondent’s support for forest carbon protection. Analysis of income trends from the ‘big seven’ non-timber forest resources in the region showed increase in Gnetum africanum, Bushmeat, Irvingia gabonensis, Garcinia kola, while carpolobia spp., Randia and rattan cane revealed declining income since inception of REDD+. The recorded increase in household income was attributed to a ban in logging. It is recommended that the forest communities should be more heavily involved in the subsequent phases of the project implementation to avoid carbon leakages
Deep convolutional regression modelling for forest parameter retrieval
Accurate forest monitoring is crucial as forests are major global carbon sinks. Additionally, accurate prediction of forest parameters, such as forest biomass and stem volume (SV), has economic importance. Therefore, the development of regression models for forest parameter retrieval is essential.
Existing forest parameter estimation methods use regression models that establish pixel-wise relationships between ground reference data and corresponding pixels in remote sensing (RS) images. However, these models often overlook spatial contextual relationships among neighbouring pixels, limiting the potential for improved forest monitoring. The emergence of deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) provides opportunities for enhanced forest parameter retrieval through their convolutional filters that allow for contextual modelling. However, utilising deep CNNs for regression presents its challenges. One significant challenge is that the training of CNNs typically requires continuous data layers for both predictor and response variables. While RS data is continuous, the ground reference data is sparse and scattered across large areas due to the challenges and costs associated with in situ data collection.
This thesis tackles challenges related to using CNNs for regression by introducing novel deep learning-based solutions across diverse forest types and parameters. To address the sparsity of available reference data, RS-derived prediction maps can be used as auxiliary data to train the CNN-based regression models. This is addressed through two different approaches.
Although these prediction maps offer greater spatial coverage than the original ground reference data, they do not ensure spatially continuous prediction target data. This work proposes a novel methodology that enables CNN-based regression models to handle this diversity. Efficient CNN architectures for the regression task are developed by investigating relevant learning objectives, including a new frequency-aware one. To enable large-scale and cost-effective regression modelling of forests, this thesis suggests utilising C-band synthetic aperture radar SAR data as regressor input. Results demonstrate the substantial potential of C-band SAR-based convolutional regression models for forest parameter retrieval
Land Surface Monitoring Based on Satellite Imagery
This book focuses attention on significant novel approaches developed to monitor land surface by exploiting satellite data in the infrared and visible ranges. Unlike in situ measurements, satellite data provide global coverage and higher temporal resolution, with very accurate retrievals of land parameters. This is fundamental in the study of climate change and global warming. The authors offer an overview of different methodologies to retrieve land surface parameters— evapotranspiration, emissivity contrast and water deficit indices, land subsidence, leaf area index, vegetation height, and crop coefficient—all of which play a significant role in the study of land cover, land use, monitoring of vegetation and soil water stress, as well as early warning and detection of forest fires and drought
Evaluation of low-cost Earth observations to scale-up national forest monitoring in Miombo Woodlands of Malawi
This study explored the extent that low-cost Earth Observations (EO) data could effectively be combined with in-situ tree-level measurements to support national estimates of Above Ground Biomass (AGB) and Carbon (C) in Malawi’s Miombo Woodlands. The specific objectives were to; (i) investigate the effectiveness of low-cost optical UAV orthomosaics in geo-locating individual trees and estimating AGB and C, (ii) scale-up the AGB estimates using the canopy height model derived from the UAV imagery, and crown diameter measurements; and (iii) compare results from (ii), ALOS-PALSAR-2, Sentinel1, ESA CCI Biomass Map datasets, and Sentinel 2 vis/NIR/SWIR band combination datasets in mapping biomass. Data were acquired in 2019 from 13 plots over Ntchisi Forest in 3-fold, vis-a-vis; (i) individual tree measurements from 0.1ha ground-based (gb) plots, (ii) 3-7cm pixel resolution optical airborne imagery from 50ha plots, and (iii) SAR backscatter and Vis/NIR/SWIR bands imagery. Results demonstrate a strong correlational relationship (R2 = 0.7, RMSE = 11tCha-1) between gb AGB and gb fractional cover percent (FC %), more importantly (R2 = 0.7) between gb AGB and UAV-based FC. Similarly, another set of high correlation (R2 = 0.9, RMSE = 7tCha-1; R2 = 0.8, RMSE = 8tCha-1; and R2 = 0.7) was observed between the gb AGB and EO-based AGB from; (i) ALOS-PALSAR-2, (ii) ESA-CCI-Biomass Map, and (iii) S1-C-band, respectively. Under the measurement conditions, these findings reveal that; (i) FC is more indicative of AGB and C pattern than CHM, (ii) the UAV can collect optical data of very high resolution (3-7cm resolution with ±13m horizontal geolocation error), and (iii) provides the cost-effective means of bridging the ground datasets to the wall-to-wall satellite EO data (£7 ha-1 compared to £30 ha-1, per person, provided by the gb system). The overall better performance of the SAR backscatter (R2 = 0.7 to 0.9) establishes the suitability of the SAR backscatter to infer the Miombo AGB and fractional cover with high accuracy. However, the following factors compromised the accuracy for both the SAR and optical measurements; leaf-off and seasonality (fire, aridness), topography (steep slopes of 18-74%), and sensing angle. Inversely, the weak to moderate correlation observed between the gb height and UAV FC % measurements (R2 = 0.4 to 0.7) are attributable to the underestimation systematic error that UAV height datasets are associated with. The visual lacunarity analysis on S2-Vis/NIR/SWIR composite band and SAR backscatter measurements demonstrated robust, consistent and homogenous spatial crown patterns exhibited particularly by the leaf-on tree canopies along riverine tree belts and cohorts. These results reveal the potential of vis/NIR/SWIR band combination in determining the effect of fire, rock outcrops and bare land/soil common in these woodlands. Coarsening the EO imagery to ≥50m pixel resolution compromised the accuracy of the estimations, hence <50m resolution is the ideal scale for these Miombo.
Careful consideration of the aforementioned factors and incorporation of FC parameter in during estimation of AGB and C will go a long way in not only enhancing the accuracy of the measurements, but also in bolstering Malawi’s NFMS standards to yield carbon off-set payments under the global REDD+ mechanism
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