An automated method for time-series human settlement mapping using Landsat data and existing land cover maps

Author(s):  
H. Miyazaki ◽  
R. Shibasaki ◽  
M. Nagai
Author(s):  
H. Miyazaki ◽  
M. Nagai ◽  
R. Shibasaki

Methodology of automated human settlement mapping is highly needed for utilization of historical satellite data archives for urgent issues of urban growth in global scale, such as disaster risk management, public health, food security, and urban management. As development of global data with spatial resolution of 10-100 m was achieved by some initiatives using ASTER, Landsat, and TerraSAR-X, next goal has targeted to development of time-series data which can contribute to studies urban development with background context of socioeconomy, disaster risk management, public health, transport and other development issues. We developed an automated algorithm to detect human settlement by classification of built-up and non-built-up in time-series Landsat images. A machine learning algorithm, Local and Global Consistency (LLGC), was applied with improvements for remote sensing data. The algorithm enables to use MCD12Q1, a MODIS-based global land cover map with 500-m resolution, as training data so that any manual process is not required for preparation of training data. In addition, we designed the method to composite multiple results of LLGC into a single output to reduce uncertainty. The LLGC results has a confidence value ranging 0.0 to 1.0 representing probability of built-up and non-built-up. The median value of the confidence for a certain period around a target time was expected to be a robust output of confidence to identify built-up or non-built-up areas against uncertainties in satellite data quality, such as cloud and haze contamination. Four scenes of Landsat data for each target years, 1990, 2000, 2005, and 2010, were chosen among the Landsat archive data with cloud contamination less than 20%.We developed a system with the algorithms on the Data Integration and Analysis System (DIAS) in the University of Tokyo and processed 5200 scenes of Landsat data for cities with more than one million people worldwide.


Author(s):  
H. Miyazaki ◽  
M. Nagai ◽  
R. Shibasaki

Methodology of automated human settlement mapping is highly needed for utilization of historical satellite data archives for urgent issues of urban growth in global scale, such as disaster risk management, public health, food security, and urban management. As development of global data with spatial resolution of 10-100 m was achieved by some initiatives using ASTER, Landsat, and TerraSAR-X, next goal has targeted to development of time-series data which can contribute to studies urban development with background context of socioeconomy, disaster risk management, public health, transport and other development issues. We developed an automated algorithm to detect human settlement by classification of built-up and non-built-up in time-series Landsat images. A machine learning algorithm, Local and Global Consistency (LLGC), was applied with improvements for remote sensing data. The algorithm enables to use MCD12Q1, a MODIS-based global land cover map with 500-m resolution, as training data so that any manual process is not required for preparation of training data. In addition, we designed the method to composite multiple results of LLGC into a single output to reduce uncertainty. The LLGC results has a confidence value ranging 0.0 to 1.0 representing probability of built-up and non-built-up. The median value of the confidence for a certain period around a target time was expected to be a robust output of confidence to identify built-up or non-built-up areas against uncertainties in satellite data quality, such as cloud and haze contamination. Four scenes of Landsat data for each target years, 1990, 2000, 2005, and 2010, were chosen among the Landsat archive data with cloud contamination less than 20%.We developed a system with the algorithms on the Data Integration and Analysis System (DIAS) in the University of Tokyo and processed 5200 scenes of Landsat data for cities with more than one million people worldwide.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 3091
Author(s):  
Shuai Xie ◽  
Liangyun Liu ◽  
Jiangning Yang

Percentile features derived from Landsat time-series data are widely adopted in land-cover classification. However, the temporal distribution of Landsat valid observations is highly uneven across different pixels due to the gaps resulting from clouds, cloud shadows, snow, and the scan line corrector (SLC)-off problem. In addition, when applying percentile features, land-cover change in time-series data is usually not considered. In this paper, an improved percentile called the time-series model (TSM)-adjusted percentile is proposed for land-cover classification based on Landsat data. The Landsat data were first modeled using three different time-series models, and the land-cover changes were continuously monitored using the continuous change detection (CCD) algorithm. The TSM-adjusted percentiles for stable pixels were then derived from the synthetic time-series data without gaps. Finally, the TSM-adjusted percentiles were used for generating supervised random forest classifications. The proposed methods were implemented on Landsat time-series data of three study areas. The classification results were compared with those obtained using the original percentiles derived from the original time-series data with gaps. The results show that the land-cover classifications obtained using the proposed TSM-adjusted percentiles have significantly higher overall accuracies than those obtained using the original percentiles. The proposed method was more effective for forest types with obvious phenological characteristics and with fewer valid observations. In addition, it was also robust to the training data sampling strategy. Overall, the methods proposed in this work can provide accurate characterization of land cover and improve the overall classification accuracy based on such metrics. The findings are promising for percentile-based land cover classification using Landsat time series data, especially in the areas with frequent cloud coverage.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 2411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thanh Noi Phan ◽  
Verena Kuch ◽  
Lukas W. Lehnert

Land cover information plays a vital role in many aspects of life, from scientific and economic to political. Accurate information about land cover affects the accuracy of all subsequent applications, therefore accurate and timely land cover information is in high demand. In land cover classification studies over the past decade, higher accuracies were produced when using time series satellite images than when using single date images. Recently, the availability of the Google Earth Engine (GEE), a cloud-based computing platform, has gained the attention of remote sensing based applications where temporal aggregation methods derived from time series images are widely applied (i.e., the use the metrics such as mean or median), instead of time series images. In GEE, many studies simply select as many images as possible to fill gaps without concerning how different year/season images might affect the classification accuracy. This study aims to analyze the effect of different composition methods, as well as different input images, on the classification results. We use Landsat 8 surface reflectance (L8sr) data with eight different combination strategies to produce and evaluate land cover maps for a study area in Mongolia. We implemented the experiment on the GEE platform with a widely applied algorithm, the Random Forest (RF) classifier. Our results show that all the eight datasets produced moderately to highly accurate land cover maps, with overall accuracy over 84.31%. Among the eight datasets, two time series datasets of summer scenes (images from 1 June to 30 September) produced the highest accuracy (89.80% and 89.70%), followed by the median composite of the same input images (88.74%). The difference between these three classifications was not significant based on the McNemar test (p > 0.05). However, significant difference (p < 0.05) was observed for all other pairs involving one of these three datasets. The results indicate that temporal aggregation (e.g., median) is a promising method, which not only significantly reduces data volume (resulting in an easier and faster analysis) but also produces an equally high accuracy as time series data. The spatial consistency among the classification results was relatively low compared to the general high accuracy, showing that the selection of the dataset used in any classification on GEE is an important and crucial step, because the input images for the composition play an essential role in land cover classification, particularly with snowy, cloudy and expansive areas like Mongolia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (16) ◽  
pp. 20309-20320
Author(s):  
Shahzad Ali ◽  
Malak Henchiri ◽  
Zhang Sha ◽  
Kalisa Wilson ◽  
Bai Yun ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
H. Costa ◽  
P. Benevides ◽  
F. Marcelino ◽  
M. Caetano

Abstract. A series of five land cover maps, widely known as COS (Carta de Uso e Ocupação do Solo), have been produced since 1990 for mainland Portugal. Previous to 2015, all maps were produced through photo-interpretation of orthophotos. Land cover and land use changes were detected through comparison of previous and recent orthophotos, which were used for map updating, thereby producing a new map. The remaining areas of no change were preserved across the maps for consistency. Despite the value of the maps produced, the method is very time-consuming and limited to the single-date reference of the orthophotos. From 2015 onwards, a new approach was adopted for map production. Photo-interpretation of orthophoto maps is still the basis of mapping, but assisted by products derived from satellite data. The goals are three-fold: (i) cut time production, (ii) increase map accuracy, and (iii) further detail the nomenclature. The last map published (COS 2015) benefited from change detection and classification analyses of Landsat data, namely for guiding the photo-interpretation in forest, shrublands, and mapping annual agriculture. Time production and map error have been reduced comparing to previous maps. The new 2018 map, currently in production, further explores this approach. Landsat 8 time series of 2015–2018 are used for change detection in vegetation based on NDVI differencing, thresholding and clustering. Sentinel-2 time series of 2017–2018 are used to classify Autumn/Winter crops and Spring/Summer crops based on NDVI temporal profiles and classification rules. Benefits and pitfalls of the new mapping approach are presented and discussed.


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