3,644 research outputs found
A Comparative Analysis of Phytovolume Estimation Methods Based on UAV-Photogrammetry and Multispectral Imagery in a Mediterranean Forest
Management and control operations are crucial for preventing forest fires, especially in Mediterranean forest areas with dry climatic periods. One of them is prescribed fires, in which the biomass fuel present in the controlled plot area must be accurately estimated. The most used methods for estimating biomass are time-consuming and demand too much manpower. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carrying multispectral sensors can be used to carry out accurate indirect measurements of terrain and vegetation morphology and their radiometric characteristics. Based on the UAV-photogrammetric project products, four estimators of phytovolume were compared in a Mediterranean forest area, all obtained using the difference between a digital surface model (DSM) and a digital terrain model (DTM). The DSM was derived from a UAV-photogrammetric project based on the structure from a motion algorithm. Four different methods for obtaining a DTM were used based on an unclassified dense point cloud produced through a UAV-photogrammetric project (FFU), an unsupervised classified dense point cloud (FFC), a multispectral vegetation index (FMI), and a cloth simulation filter (FCS). Qualitative and quantitative comparisons determined the ability of the phytovolume estimators for vegetation detection and occupied volume. The results show that there are no significant differences in surface vegetation detection between all the pairwise possible comparisons of the four estimators at a 95% confidence level, but FMI presented the best kappa value (0.678) in an error matrix analysis with reference data obtained from photointerpretation and supervised classification. Concerning the accuracy of phytovolume estimation, only FFU and FFC presented differences higher than two standard deviations in a pairwise comparison, and FMI presented the best RMSE (12.3 m) when the estimators were compared to 768 observed data points grouped in four 500 m2 sample plots. The FMI was the best phytovolume estimator of the four compared for low vegetation height in a Mediterranean forest. The use of FMI based on UAV data provides accurate phytovolume estimations that can be applied on several environment management activities, including wildfire prevention. Multitemporal phytovolume estimations based on FMI could help to model the forest resources evolution in a very realistic way
Mapping Chestnut Stands Using Bi-Temporal VHR Data
This study analyzes the potential of very high resolution (VHR) remote sensing images and extended morphological profiles for mapping Chestnut stands on Tenerife Island (Canary Islands, Spain). Regarding their relevance for ecosystem services in the region (cultural and provisioning services) the public sector demand up-to-date information on chestnut and a simple straight-forward approach is presented in this study. We used two VHR WorldView images (March and May 2015) to cover different phenological phases. Moreover, we included spatial information in the classification process by extended morphological profiles (EMPs). Random forest is used for the classification process and we analyzed the impact of the bi-temporal information as well as of the spatial information on the classification accuracies. The detailed accuracy assessment clearly reveals the benefit of bi-temporal VHR WorldView images and spatial information, derived by EMPs, in terms of the mapping accuracy. The bi-temporal classification outperforms or at least performs equally well when compared to the classification accuracies achieved by the mono-temporal data. The inclusion of spatial information by EMPs further increases the classification accuracy by 5% and reduces the quantity and allocation disagreements on the final map. Overall the new proposed classification strategy proves useful for mapping chestnut stands in a heterogeneous and complex landscape, such as the municipality of La Orotava, Tenerife
Deep learning in remote sensing: a review
Standing at the paradigm shift towards data-intensive science, machine
learning techniques are becoming increasingly important. In particular, as a
major breakthrough in the field, deep learning has proven as an extremely
powerful tool in many fields. Shall we embrace deep learning as the key to all?
Or, should we resist a 'black-box' solution? There are controversial opinions
in the remote sensing community. In this article, we analyze the challenges of
using deep learning for remote sensing data analysis, review the recent
advances, and provide resources to make deep learning in remote sensing
ridiculously simple to start with. More importantly, we advocate remote sensing
scientists to bring their expertise into deep learning, and use it as an
implicit general model to tackle unprecedented large-scale influential
challenges, such as climate change and urbanization.Comment: Accepted for publication IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazin
A graph-based mathematical morphology reader
This survey paper aims at providing a "literary" anthology of mathematical
morphology on graphs. It describes in the English language many ideas stemming
from a large number of different papers, hence providing a unified view of an
active and diverse field of research
Airborne photogrammetry and LIDAR for DSM extraction and 3D change detection over an urban area : a comparative study
A digital surface model (DSM) extracted from stereoscopic aerial images, acquired in March 2000, is compared with a DSM derived from airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) data collected in July 2009. Three densely built-up study areas in the city centre of Ghent, Belgium, are selected, each covering approximately 0.4 km(2). The surface models, generated from the two different 3D acquisition methods, are compared qualitatively and quantitatively as to what extent they are suitable in modelling an urban environment, in particular for the 3D reconstruction of buildings. Then the data sets, which are acquired at two different epochs t(1) and t(2), are investigated as to what extent 3D (building) changes can be detected and modelled over the time interval. A difference model, generated by pixel-wise subtracting of both DSMs, indicates changes in elevation. Filters are proposed to differentiate 'real' building changes from false alarms provoked by model noise, outliers, vegetation, etc. A final 3D building change model maps all destructed and newly constructed buildings within the time interval t(2) - t(1). Based on the change model, the surface and volume of the building changes can be quantified
First results of the OROMA experiment in the Lister Tief of the German Bight in the North Sea, EARSeL Proceedings
The objective of the project entitled “Operational Radar and Optical Mapping in monitoring hydrodynamic,
morphodynamic and environmental parameters for coastal management (OROMA)”
within the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission (EC) is to improve the effectiveness
of monitoring technologies in coastal waters. The Research Vessel (R.V.) Ludwig Prandtl
of the GKSS research centre was equipped with special sensors and instruments to measure the
position of the ship, the water depth, the salinity, the water temperature, the current speed and direction,
the modulation characteristics of short-wave energies, and relevant air-sea interaction parameters
due to the presence of submarine sand waves. The first experiment of the OROMA project
on 5-16 August 2002 took place in the Lister Tief, a tidal inlet of the German Bight in the North
Sea. The seabed morphology of the Lister Tief reveals a complex configuration of different bedforms
which is four-dimensional in space and time. A significant upward orientated component uvert
of the three-dimensional current velocity field was observed. Marked vertically so-called waterspouts
of uvert above the crests of sand waves have been measured by the Acoustic Doppler Current
Profiler (ADCP) as straight lines. They cause water upwelling with turbulence patterns at the
water surface affecting the Normalized Radar Cross Section (NRCS) modulation. A first impression
of expected NRCS modulation signatures of sea bottom topography detected by the GKSS
shipborne X-band radar are presented as an uncalibrated composite of five single sea clutter images
acquired in the Lister Tief on 22 November 1990
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