scholarly journals Spatial and Temporal Downscaling of TRMM Precipitation with Novel Algorithms

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1259-1278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huihui Zhang ◽  
Hugo A. Loáiciga ◽  
Da Ha ◽  
Qingyun Du

AbstractTropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite products constitute valuable precipitation datasets over regions with sparse rain gauge networks. Downscaling is an effective approach to estimating the precipitation over ungauged areas with high spatial resolution. However, a large bias and low resolution of original TRMM satellite images constitute constraints for practical hydrologic applications of TRMM precipitation products. This study contributes two precipitation downscaling algorithms by exploring the nonstationarity relations between precipitation and various environment factors [daytime surface temperature (LTD), terrain slope, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), altitude, longitude, and latitude] to overcome bias and low-resolution constraints of TRMM precipitation. Downscaling of precipitation is achieved with the geographically weighted regression model (GWR) and the backward-propagation artificial neural networks (BP_ANN). The probability density function (PDF) algorithm corrects the bias of satellite precipitation data with respect to spatial and temporal scales prior to downscaling. The principal component analysis algorithm (PCA) provides an alternative method of obtaining accurate monthly rainfall estimates during the wet rainfall season that minimizes the temporal uncertainties and upscaling effects introduced by direct accumulation (DA) of precipitation. The performances of the proposed downscaling algorithms are assessed by downscaling the latest version of TRMM3B42 V7 datasets within Hubei Province from 0.25° (about 25 km) to 1-km spatial resolution at the monthly scale. The downscaled datasets are systematically evaluated with in situ observations at 27 rain gauges from the years 2005 through 2010. This paper’s results demonstrate the bias correction is necessary before downscaling. The high-resolution precipitation datasets obtained with the proposed downscaling model with GWR relying on the NDVI and slope are shown to improve the accuracy of precipitation estimates. GWR exhibits more accurate downscaling results than BP_ANN coupled with the genetic algorithm (GA) in most dry and wet seasons.

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
No-Wook Park

A geostatistical downscaling scheme is presented and can generate fine scale precipitation information from coarse scale Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) data by incorporating auxiliary fine scale environmental variables. Within the geostatistical framework, the TRMM precipitation data are first decomposed into trend and residual components. Quantitative relationships between coarse scale TRMM data and environmental variables are then estimated via regression analysis and used to derive trend components at a fine scale. Next, the residual components, which are the differences between the trend components and the original TRMM data, are then downscaled at a target fine scale via area-to-point kriging. The trend and residual components are finally added to generate fine scale precipitation estimates. Stochastic simulation is also applied to the residual components in order to generate multiple alternative realizations and to compute uncertainty measures. From an experiment using a digital elevation model (DEM) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the geostatistical downscaling scheme generated the downscaling results that reflected detailed characteristics with better predictive performance, when compared with downscaling without the environmental variables. Multiple realizations and uncertainty measures from simulation also provided useful information for interpretations and further environmental modeling.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Yulia Ivanova ◽  
Anton Kovalev ◽  
Vlad Soukhovolsky

The paper considers a new approach to modeling the relationship between the increase in woody phytomass in the pine forest and satellite-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST) (MODIS/AQUA) data. The developed model combines the phenological and forest growth processes. For the analysis, NDVI and LST (MODIS) satellite data were used together with the measurements of tree-ring widths (TRW). NDVI data contain features of each growing season. The models include parameters of parabolic approximation of NDVI and LST time series transformed using principal component analysis. The study shows that the current rate of TRW is determined by the total values of principal components of the satellite indices over the season and the rate of tree increment in the preceding year.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brianna Pagán ◽  
Adekunle Ajayi ◽  
Mamadou Krouma ◽  
Jyotsna Budideti ◽  
Omar Tafsi

<p>The value of satellite imagery to monitor crop health in near-real time continues to exponentially grow as more missions are launched making data available at higher spatial and temporal scales. Yet cloud cover remains an issue for utilizing vegetation indexes (VIs) solely based on optic imagery, especially in certain regions and climates. Previous research has proven the ability to reconstruct VIs like the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Leaf Area Index (LAI) by leveraging synthetic aperture radar (SAR) datasets, which are not inhibited by cloud cover. Publicly available data from SAR missions like Sentinel-1 at relatively decent spatial resolutions present the opportunity for more affordable options for agriculture users to integrate satellite imagery in their day to day operations. Previous research has successfully reconstructed optic VIs (i.e. from Sentinel-2) with SAR data (i.e. from Sentinel-1) leveraging various machine learning approaches for a limited number of crop types. However, these efforts normally train on individual pixels rather than leveraging information at a field level. </p><p>Here we present Beyond Cloud, a product which is the first to leverage computer vision and machine learning approaches in order to provide fused optic and SAR based crop health information. Field level learning is especially well-suited for inherently noisy SAR datasets. Several use cases are presented over agriculture fields located throughout the United Kingdom, France and Belgium, where cloud cover limits optic based solutions to as little as 2-3 images per growing season. Preliminary efforts for additional features to the product including automated crop and soil type detection are also discussed. Beyond Cloud can be accessed via a simple API which makes integration of the results easy for existing dashboards and smart-ag tools. Overall, these efforts promote the accessibility of satellite imagery for real agriculture end users.</p><p> </p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 156 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Palchowdhuri ◽  
R. Valcarce-Diñeiro ◽  
P. King ◽  
M. Sanabria-Soto

AbstractRemote sensing (RS) offers an efficient and reliable means to map features on Earth. Crop type mapping using RS at various temporal and spatial resolutions plays an important role spanning from environmental to economical. The main objective of the current study was to evaluate the significance of optical data in a multi-temporal crop type classification-based on very high spatial resolution and high spatial resolution imagery. With this aim, three images from WorldView-3 and Sentinel-2 were acquired over Coalville (UK) between April and July 2016. Three vegetation indices (VIs); the normalized difference vegetation index, the green normalized difference vegetation index and soil adjusted vegetation index were generated using red, green and near-infrared spectral bands; then a supervised classification was performed using ground reference data collected from field surveys, Random forest (RF) and decision tree (DT) classification algorithms. Accuracy assessment was undertaken by comparing the classified output with the reference data. An overall accuracy of 91% and κ coefficient of 0·90 were estimated using the combination of RF and DT classification algorithms. Therefore, it can be concluded that integrating very high- and high-resolution imagery with different VIs can be implemented effectively to produce large-scale crop maps even with a limited temporal-dataset.


2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-172
Author(s):  
Abdullah Salman Alsalman Abdullah Salman Alsalman

Noting that Khartoum represents the most rapidly expanding city in the Sudan and taking into account that change detection operations are seldom , the present study has been initiated to attempt to produce work that synthesizes land use/land cover (LULC) to investigate change detection using GIS, remote sensing data and digital image processing techniques; estimate, evaluate and map changes that took place in the city from 1975 to 2003. The experiment used the techniques of visual inspection, write-function-memoryinsertion, image differencing, image transformation i.e. normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), tasseled cap, principal component analysis (PCA), post-classification comparison and GIS. The results of all these various techniques were used by the authors to study change detection of the geographic locale of the test area. Image processing and GIS techniques were performed using Intergraph Image analyst 8.4 and GeoMedia professional version 6, ERDAS Imagine 8.7, and ArcGIS 9.2. Results obtained were discussed and analyzed in a comparative manner and a conclusion regarding the best method for change detection of the test area was derived.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hölbling ◽  
Barbara Friedl ◽  
Clemens Eisank

Abstract Earth observation (EO) data are very useful for the detection of landslides after triggering events, especially if they occur in remote and hardly accessible terrain. To fully exploit the potential of the wide range of existing remote sensing data, innovative and reliable landslide (change) detection methods are needed. Recently, object-based image analysis (OBIA) has been employed for EO-based landslide (change) mapping. The proposed object-based approach has been tested for a sub-area of the Baichi catchment in northern Taiwan. The focus is on the mapping of landslides and debris flows/sediment transport areas caused by the Typhoons Aere in 2004 and Matsa in 2005. For both events, pre- and post-disaster optical satellite images (SPOT-5 with 2.5 m spatial resolution) were analysed. A Digital Elevation Model (DEM) with 5 m spatial resolution and its derived products, i.e., slope and curvature, were additionally integrated in the analysis to support the semi-automated object-based landslide mapping. Changes were identified by comparing the normalised values of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (GNDVI) of segmentation-derived image objects between pre- and post-event images and attributed to landslide classes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 1015-1026 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nobuyuki Utsumi ◽  
Hyungjun Kim ◽  
F. Joseph Turk ◽  
Ziad. S. Haddad

Abstract Quantifying time-averaged rain rate, or rain accumulation, on subhourly time scales is essential for various application studies requiring rain estimates. This study proposes a novel idea to estimate subhourly time-averaged surface rain rate based on the instantaneous vertical rain profile observed from low-Earth-orbiting satellites. Instantaneous rain estimates from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Precipitation Radar (PR) are compared with 1-min surface rain gauges in North America and Kwajalein atoll for the warm seasons of 2005–14. Time-lagged correlation analysis between PR rain rates at various height levels and surface rain gauge data shows that the peak of the correlations tends to be delayed for PR rain at higher levels up to around 6-km altitude. PR estimates for low to middle height levels have better correlations with time-delayed surface gauge data than the PR’s estimated surface rain rate product. This implies that rain estimates for lower to middle heights may have skill to estimate the eventual surface rain rate that occurs 1–30 min later. Therefore, in this study, the vertical profiles of TRMM PR instantaneous rain estimates are averaged between the surface and various heights above the surface to represent time-averaged surface rain rate. It was shown that vertically averaged PR estimates up to middle heights (~4.5 km) exhibit better skill, compared to the PR estimated instantaneous surface rain product, to represent subhourly (~30 min) time-averaged surface rain rate. These findings highlight the merit of additional consideration of vertical rain profiles, not only instantaneous surface rain rate, to improve subhourly surface estimates of satellite-based rain products.


Author(s):  
Kim ◽  
Min ◽  
Kim ◽  
Silva ◽  
Hyun ◽  
...  

Nitrogen use efficiency in modern agriculture is very low. It means that a lot of synthetic chemicals are wasted rather than utilized by crops. This can cause more problems where the soil surface is thin and rocky like Jeju Island in the Republic of Korea. This is because overly used nitrogen fertilizer can be washed into the underground water and pollute it. Thus, it would be important to monitor the nitrogen deficiency of crops in the field to provide the right amount of nitrogen in a timely manner so that nitrogen waste can be limited. To achieve this, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was used to monitor chlorophyll content, which is tightly associated with nitrogen content in the buckwheat field. The NDVI was calculated with the data obtained by a low-resolution camera mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle. The results showed that the NDVI can estimate the chlorophyll content of buckwheat. These simple but clear results imply that precision agriculture could be achieved even with a low-resolution camera in a cost-effective manner to reduce the pollution of underground water.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 878 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Hall ◽  
R. S. Skakun ◽  
J. M. Metsaranta ◽  
R. Landry ◽  
R.H. Fraser ◽  
...  

Determining burned area in Canada across fire management agencies is challenging because of different mapping scales and methods. The inconsistent removal of unburned islands and water features from within burned polygon perimeters further complicates the problem. To improve the determination of burned area, the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation and the Canadian Forest Service developed the National Burned Area Composite (NBAC). The primary data sources for this tool are an automated system to derive fire polygons from 30-m Landsat imagery (Multi-Acquisition Fire Mapping System) and high-quality agency polygons delineated from imagery with spatial resolution ≤30m. For fires not mapped by these sources, the Hotspot and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index Differencing Synergy method was used with 250–1000-m satellite data. From 2004 to 2016, the National Burned Area Composite reported an average of 2.26 Mha burned annually, with considerable interannual variability. Independent assessment of Multi-Acquisition Fire Mapping System polygons achieved an average accuracy of 96% relative to burned-area data with high spatial resolution. Confidence intervals for national area burned statistics averaged±4.3%, suggesting that NBAC contributes relatively little uncertainty to current estimates of the carbon balance of Canada’s forests.


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