Mapping Burned Areas in a Mediterranean Environment Using Soft Integration of Spectral Indices from High-Resolution Satellite Images

Abstract This article presents a new method for burned area mapping using high-resolution satellite images in the Mediterranean ecosystem. In such a complex environment, high-resolution satellite images represent an appropriate data source for identifying fire-affected areas, and single postfire data are often the only available source of information. The method proposed here integrates several spectral indices into a fuzzy synthetic indicator of likelihood of burn. The indices are interpreted through fuzzy membership functions that have been derived with a partially data-driven approach exploiting training data and expert knowledge. The final map of fire-affected areas is produced by applying a region growing algorithm on the basis of seed pixels selected on a conservative threshold of the synthetic fuzzy score. The algorithm has been developed and tested on a set of Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) scenes acquired over Southern Italy. Validation showed that the accuracy of the burned area maps is comparable or even better [overall accuracy (OA) > 90%, K > 0.76] than that obtained with approaches based on single index thresholds adapted to each image. The method described here provides an automatic approach for mapping fire-affected areas with very few false alarms (low commission error), whereas omission errors are mainly related to undetected small burned areas and are located in heterogeneous sparse vegetation cover

Understanding of crop lodging induced changes in scattering mechanisms using RADERSAT-2 and Sentinel-1 derived metrics

Abstract. Crop lodging – the bending of crop stems from the vertical – is a major yield-reducing factor in cereal crops and causes deterioration in grain quality. Accurate assessment of crop lodging is important for improving estimates of crop yield losses, informing insurance loss adjusters and influencing management decisions for subsequent seasons. The role of remote sensing data, particularly synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data has been emphasized in the recent literature for crop lodging assessment. However, the effect of lodging on SAR scattering mechanisms is still unknown. Therefore, this research aims to understand the possible change in scattering mechanisms due to lodging by investigating SAR image pairs before and after lodging. We conducted the study in 26 wheat fields in the Bonifiche Ferraresi farm, located in Jolanda di Savoia, Ferrara, Italy. We measured temporal crop biophysical (e.g. crop angle) parameters and acquired multi-incidence angle RADARSAT-2 (R-2 FQ8-27° and R-2 FQ21-41°) and Sentinel-1 (S-1 40°) images corresponding to the time of field observations. We extracted metrics of SAR scattering mechanisms from RADARSAT-2 and Sentinel-1 image pairs in different zones using the unsupervised H/α decomposition algorithm and Wishart classifier. Contrasting results were obtained at different incidence angles. Bragg surface scattering increased in the case of S-1 (6.8%), R-2 FQ8 (1.8%) while at R-2 FQ21, it decreased (8%) after lodging. The change in double bounce scattering was more prominent at low incidence angle. These observations can guide future use of SAR-based information for operational crop lodging assessment in particular, and sustainable agriculture in general

A hybrid multi-step approach for urban area mapping in the Province of Milan, Italy

AbstractRemote sensing products have proven an effective tool for the study of urban areas, from city management to environmental monitoring. This work focuses on the mapping of urban areas in the Province of Milan, Northern Italy, using mid-resolution remote sensing data covering the last 20 years. The methodology consists of three main steps: (i) a pixel-based classification tree, (ii) object-based filtering of agricultural terrain, and (iii) joining of land cover classes into two (urbanized and non-urbanized), adding post-classification editing. The final derived urban maps were validated and demonstrated to reach very good accuracy (error: 7–13%), thus providing reliable thematic information for urban planning of local and regional authorities

Monitoring rice agropractices in North Africa: a comparison of MODIS and Sentinel-1 results

Agro-monitoring systems need up-to-date information on where, when and how much a crop is cultivated, in particular in developing countries and for food security reasons. Such information can be derived from remote sensing imagery with fast revisiting cycles. In the past, only time series of optical moderate resolution data such as HVRR, SPOT-Vegetation and MODIS provided the necessary high temporal resolution for this kind of applications. These datasets have been successfully used for agro-monitoring activities and to perform retrospective and trend analysis. Due to their moderate to coarse spatial resolution (~ 250 – 1000 m) their applications are limited however to regional to continental scales. In this context, the advent of the Sentinel sensors opens new opportunities, since they provide time series of satellite imagery with decametric spatial resolution and revisit times of 5 days. Studies that fully exploit Sentinel imagery for crop monitoring are therefore needed to assess their potential contribution for i) performing high resolution crop-monitoring activities and, ii) extending time series of information derived from archive coarse resolution imagery with the aim of performing analyses of temporal trends over a reasonably long time span. This contribution presents a comparison of MODIS or Sentinel1 time series for detection (cultivated area and number of seasons) and seasonal dynamics’ analysis (sowing, harvesting and flowering dates) for irrigated rice cultivation in the Senegal River Valley (SRV)for the 2016 dry and wet rice seasons. MODIS time series analysis exploited the PhenoRice algorithm (Boschetti et al., 2017), a rule-based algorithm specifically designed for rice detection and seasonal dynamics monitoring and based on the use of time series of TERRA and AQUA 250 m resolution 16-day Composite Vegetation Indexes (MODIS products MOD13Q1 and MYD13Q1). The SAR data analysis was instead based on analysis of Sentinel-1A time series acquired over the study area from January to December 2016. In particular, the RICEscape software was used for analysing the SAR backscatter (0) temporal profiles both in the VV and in the VH polarization, to define a set of rules allowing to properly identify rice cultivated areas. The algorithm mostly exploits SAR data, although cloud free Landsat-8 Optical images were used to crosscheck and complement the information derived from SAR. This approach was applied to generate rice crop area and Start of Season (SOS) maps for both the dry (sowing in February – April) and the wet (sowing in September – November) rice seasons. Results showed a strong consistency between the thematic maps derived from the two data sources. We observed that, although the rice-classified area is rather different due to the large difference in spatial resolution, the main spatial patterns of estimated sowing dates and crop intensity are quite similar. A comparison between the average values of MODIS and SAR estimated dates after aggregation on a 2x2 km regular grid shows a strong correlation between the sowing dates derived from Sentinel-1 and MODIS data, for both the dry and the wet season of 2016. The comparability of MODIS and Sentinel results is encouraging for the development of innovative services for characterization and monitoring of crop systems. Such systems could in fact exploit both the sufficiently long MODIS time series to characterize the main characteristics of crop systems and their recent evolution, as well as the innovative Sentinel-1 time series for monitoring of present-day and future conditions

Towards an automated approach to map flooded areas from Sentinel-2 MSI data and soft integration of water spectral features

Abstract In this work we propose an approach for mapping flooded areas from Sentinel-2 MSI (Multispectral Instrument) data based on soft fuzzy integration of evidence scores derived from both band combinations (i.e. Spectral Indices - SIs) and components of the Hue, Saturation and Value (HSV) colour transformation. Evidence scores are integrated with Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) operators, which model user's decision attitude varying smoothly between optimistic and pessimistic approach. Output is a map of global evidence degree showing the plausibility of being flooded for each pixel of the input Sentinel-2 (S2) image. Algorithm set up and validation were carried out with data over three sites in Italy where water surfaces are extracted from stable water bodies (lakes and rivers), natural hazard flooding, and irrigated paddy rice fields. Validation showed more than satisfactory accuracy for the OR-like OWA operators (F-score > 0.90) with performance slightly decreased (F-scor

Assessing in-season crop classification performance using satellite data: a test case in Northern Italy

AbstractThis study investigated the feasibility of delivering a crop type map early during the growing season. Landsat 8 OLI multi-temporal data acquired in 2013 season were used to classify seven crop types in Northern Italy. The accuracy achieved with four supervised algorithms, fed with multi-temporal spectral indices (EVI, NDFI, RGRI), was assessed as a function of the crop map delivery time during the season. Overall accuracy (Kappa) exceeds 85% (0.83) starting from mid-July, five months before the end of the season, when maximum accuracy is reached (OA=92%, Kappa=0.91). Among crop types, rice is the most accurately classified, followed by forages, maize and arboriculture, while soybean or double crops can be confused with other classes