scholarly journals Mapping Agricultural Landuse Patterns from Time Series of Landsat 8 Using Random Forest Based Hierarchial Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 601 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sajid Pareeth ◽  
Poolad Karimi ◽  
Mojtaba Shafiei ◽  
Charlotte De Fraiture

Increase in irrigated area, driven by demand for more food production, in the semi-arid regions of Asia and Africa is putting pressure on the already strained available water resources. To cope and manage this situation, monitoring spatial and temporal dynamics of the irrigated area land use at basin level is needed to ensure proper allocation of water. Publicly available satellite data at high spatial resolution and advances in remote sensing techniques offer a viable opportunity. In this study, we developed a new approach using time series of Landsat 8 (L8) data and Random Forest (RF) machine learning algorithm by introducing a hierarchical post-processing scheme to extract key Land Use Land Cover (LULC) types. We implemented this approach for Mashhad basin in Iran to develop a LULC map at 15 m spatial resolution with nine classes for the crop year 2015/2016. In addition, five irrigated land use types were extracted for three crop years—2013/2014, 2014/2015, and 2015/2016—using the RF models. The total irrigated area was estimated at 1796.16 km2, 1581.7 km2 and 1578.26 km2 for the cropping years 2013/2014, 2014/2015 and 2015/2016, respectively. The overall accuracy of the final LULC map was 87.2% with a kappa coefficient of 0.85. The methodology was implemented using open data and open source libraries. The ability of the RF models to extract key LULC types at basin level shows the usability of such approaches for operational near real time monitoring.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 2869
Author(s):  
MohammadAli Hemati ◽  
Mahdi Hasanlou ◽  
Masoud Mahdianpari ◽  
Fariba Mohammadimanesh

With uninterrupted space-based data collection since 1972, Landsat plays a key role in systematic monitoring of the Earth’s surface, enabled by an extensive and free, radiometrically consistent, global archive of imagery. Governments and international organizations rely on Landsat time series for monitoring and deriving a systematic understanding of the dynamics of the Earth’s surface at a spatial scale relevant to management, scientific inquiry, and policy development. In this study, we identify trends in Landsat-informed change detection studies by surveying 50 years of published applications, processing, and change detection methods. Specifically, a representative database was created resulting in 490 relevant journal articles derived from the Web of Science and Scopus. From these articles, we provide a review of recent developments, opportunities, and trends in Landsat change detection studies. The impact of the Landsat free and open data policy in 2008 is evident in the literature as a turning point in the number and nature of change detection studies. Based upon the search terms used and articles included, average number of Landsat images used in studies increased from 10 images before 2008 to 100,000 images in 2020. The 2008 opening of the Landsat archive resulted in a marked increase in the number of images used per study, typically providing the basis for the other trends in evidence. These key trends include an increase in automated processing, use of analysis-ready data (especially those with atmospheric correction), and use of cloud computing platforms, all over increasing large areas. The nature of change methods has evolved from representative bi-temporal pairs to time series of images capturing dynamics and trends, capable of revealing both gradual and abrupt changes. The result also revealed a greater use of nonparametric classifiers for Landsat change detection analysis. Landsat-9, to be launched in September 2021, in combination with the continued operation of Landsat-8 and integration with Sentinel-2, enhances opportunities for improved monitoring of change over increasingly larger areas with greater intra- and interannual frequency.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2211
Author(s):  
Shuo Xu ◽  
Jie Cheng ◽  
Quan Zhang

Land surface temperature (LST) is an important parameter for mirroring the water–heat exchange and balance on the Earth’s surface. Passive microwave (PMW) LST can make up for the lack of thermal infrared (TIR) LST caused by cloud contamination, but its resolution is relatively low. In this study, we developed a TIR and PWM LST fusion method on based the random forest (RF) machine learning algorithm to obtain the all-weather LST with high spatial resolution. Since LST is closely related to land cover (LC) types, terrain, vegetation conditions, moisture condition, and solar radiation, these variables were selected as candidate auxiliary variables to establish the best model to obtain the fusion results of mainland China during 2010. In general, the fusion LST had higher spatial integrity than the MODIS LST and higher accuracy than downscaled AMSR-E LST. Additionally, the magnitude of LST data in the fusion results was consistent with the general spatiotemporal variations of LST. Compared with in situ observations, the RMSE of clear-sky fused LST and cloudy-sky fused LST were 2.12–4.50 K and 3.45–4.89 K, respectively. Combining the RF method and the DINEOF method, a complete all-weather LST with a spatial resolution of 0.01° can be obtained.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 2675
Author(s):  
Stefan Mayr ◽  
Igor Klein ◽  
Martin Rutzinger ◽  
Claudia Kuenzer

Fresh water is a vital natural resource. Earth observation time-series are well suited to monitor corresponding surface dynamics. The DLR-DFD Global WaterPack (GWP) provides daily information on globally distributed inland surface water based on MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) images at 250 m spatial resolution. Operating on this spatiotemporal level comes with the drawback of moderate spatial resolution; only coarse pixel-based surface water quantification is possible. To enhance the quantitative capabilities of this dataset, we systematically access subpixel information on fractional water coverage. For this, a linear mixture model is employed, using classification probability and pure pixel reference information. Classification probability is derived from relative datapoint (pixel) locations in feature space. Pure water and non-water reference pixels are located by combining spatial and temporal information inherent to the time-series. Subsequently, the model is evaluated for different input sets to determine the optimal configuration for global processing and pixel coverage types. The performance of resulting water fraction estimates is evaluated on the pixel level in 32 regions of interest across the globe, by comparison to higher resolution reference data (Sentinel-2, Landsat 8). Results show that water fraction information is able to improve the product’s performance regarding mixed water/non-water pixels by an average of 11.6% (RMSE). With a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency of 0.61, the model shows good overall performance. The approach enables the systematic provision of water fraction estimates on a global and daily scale, using only the reflectance and temporal information contained in the input time-series.


2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Paula Sousa Rodrigues ZAIATZ ◽  
Cornélio Alberto ZOLIN ◽  
Laurimar Goncalves VENDRUSCULO ◽  
Tarcio Rocha LOPES ◽  
Janaina PAULINO

ABSTRACT The upper Teles Pires River basin is a key hydrological resource for the state of Mato Grosso, but has suffered rapid land use and cover change. The basin includes areas of Cerrado biome, as well as transitional areas between the Amazon and Cerrado vegetation types, with intensive large-scale agriculture widely-spread throughout the region. The objective of this study was to explore the spatial and temporal dynamics of land use and cover change from 1986 to 2014 in the upper Teles Pires basin using remote sensing and GIS techniques. TM (Thematic Mapper) and TIRS (Thermal Infrared Sensor) sensor images aboard the Landsat 5 and Landsat 8, respectively, were employed for supervised classification using the “Classification Workflow” in ENVI 5.0. To evaluate classification accuracy, an error matrix was generated, and the Kappa, overall accuracy, errors of omission and commission, user accuracy and producer accuracy indexes calculated. The classes showing greatest variation across the study period were “Agriculture” and “Rainforest”. Results indicated that deforested areas are often replaced by pasture and then by agriculture, while direct conversion of forest to agriculture occured less frequently. The indices with satisfactory accuracy levels included the Kappa and Global indices, which showed accuracy levels above 80% for all study years. In addition, the producer and user accuracy indices ranged from 59-100% and 68-100%, while the errors of omission and commission ranged from 0-32% and 0-40.6%, respectively.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 1266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mingzheng Zhang ◽  
Dehai Zhu ◽  
Wei Su ◽  
Jianxi Huang ◽  
Xiaodong Zhang ◽  
...  

Continuous monitoring of crop growth status using time-series remote sensing image is essential for crop management and yield prediction. The growing season of summer corn in the North China Plain with the period of rain and hot, which makes the acquisition of cloud-free satellite imagery very difficult. Therefore, we focused on developing image datasets with both a high temporal resolution and medium spatial resolution by harmonizing the time-series of MOD09GA Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) images and 30-m-resolution GF-1 WFV images using the improved Kalman filter model. The harmonized images, GF-1 images, and Landsat 8 images were then combined and used to monitor the summer corn growth from 5th June to 6th October, 2014, in three counties of Hebei Province, China, in conjunction with meteorological data and MODIS Evapotranspiration Data Set. The prediction residuals ( Δ P R K ) in NDVI between the GF-1 observations and the harmonized images was in the range of −0.2 to 0.2 with Gauss distribution. Moreover, the obtained phenological curves manifested distinctive growth features for summer corn at field scales. Changes in NDVI over time were more effectively evaluated and represented corn growth trends, when considered in conjunction with meteorological data and MODIS Evapotranspiration Data Set. We observed that the NDVI of summer corn showed a process of first decreasing and then rising in the early growing stage and discuss how the temperature and moisture of the environment changed with the growth stage. The study demonstrated that the synthesized dataset constructed using this methodology was highly accurate, with high temporal resolution and medium spatial resolution and it was possible to harmonize multi-source remote sensing imagery by the improved Kalman filter for long-term field monitoring.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikos Alexandris ◽  
Matteo Piccardo ◽  
Vasileios Syrris ◽  
Alessandro Cescatti ◽  
Gregory Duveiller

<p>The frequency of extreme heat related events is rising. This places the ever growing number of urban dwellers at higher risk. Quantifying these phenomena is important for the development and monitoring of climate change adaptation and mitigation policies. In this context, earth observations offer increasing opportunities to assess these phenomena with an unprecedented level of accuracy and spatial reach. Satellite thermal imaging systems acquire Land Surface Temperature (LST) which is fundamental to run models that study for example hotspots and heatwaves in urban environments.</p><p>Current instruments include TIRS on board Landsat 8 and MODIS on board of Terra satellites. These provide LST products on a monthly basis at 100m and twice per day at 1km respectively. Other sensors on board geostationary satellites, such as MSG and GOES-R, produce sub-hourly thermal images. For example the SEVIRI instrument onboard MSG, captures images every 15 minutes. However, this is done at an even coarser spatial resolution, which is 3 to 5 km in the case of SEVIRI. Nevertheless, none of the existing systems can capture LST synchronously with fine spatial resolution at a high temporal frequency, which is a prerequisite for monitoring heat stress in urban environments.</p><p>Combining LST time series of high temporal resolution (i.e. sub-daily MODIS- or SEVIRI-derived data) with products of fine spatial resolution (i.e. Landsat 8 products), and potentially other related variables (i.e. reflectance, spectral indices, land cover information, terrain parameters and local climatic variables), facilitates the downscaling of LST estimations. Nonetheless, considering the complexity of how distinct surfaces within a city heat-up differently during the course of a day, such a downscaling is meaningful for practically synchronous observations (e.g. Landsat-8 and MODIS Terra’s morning observations).</p><p>The recently launched ECOSTRESS mission provides multiple times in a day high spatial resolution thermal imagery at 70m. Albeit, recording the same locations on Earth every few days at varying times. We explore the associations between ECOSTRESS and Landsat-8 thermal data, based on the incoming radiation load and distinct surface properties characterised from other datasets. In our approach, first we upscale ECOSTRESS data to simulate Landsat-8 images at moments that coincide the acquisition times of other sensors products. In a second step, using the simulated Landsat-8 images, we downscale LST products acquired at later times, such as MODIS Aqua (ca. 13:30) or even the hourly MSG data. This composite downscaling procedure enables an enhanced LST estimation that opens the way for better diagnostics of the heat stress in urban landscapes.</p><p>In this study we discuss in detail the concepts of our approach and present preliminary results produced with the JEODPP, JRC's high throughput computing platform.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Zappa ◽  
Matthias Forkel ◽  
Angelika Xaver ◽  
Wouter Dorigo

<p>Remotely sensed data from microwave sensors have been successfully used to retrieve soil moisture on a global scale. In particular, passive and active microwave sensors with large footprints can observe the same location with a (sub-)daily frequency, but typically are characterized by spatial resolutions in the order of tens of km. Therefore, such coarse scale products can accurately capture the temporal dynamics of soil moisture but are inadequate in providing spatial details. However, several agricultural and hydrological applications could greatly benefit from soil moisture observations with a sub-kilometer spatial resolution while preserving a daily revisit time.</p><p>Here, we present a framework for downscaling coarse resolution satellite soil moisture products (ASCAT and SMAP) to high spatial resolution. In particular, we build robust relationships between remotely sensed soil moisture and ancillary variables on soil texture, topography, and vegetation cover. Such relationship is built through Random Forest regressions, trained against in-situ measurements of soil moisture. The proposed approach is developed and tested in an agricultural catchment equipped with a high-density network of in-situ sensors. Our results show a strong consistency between the downscaled and the observed spatio-temporal patterns of soil moisture. Furthermore, including a proxy of vegetation cover in the Random Forest regressions results in considerable improvements of the downscaling performance. Finally, if only limited training data can be used, priority should be given to increase the number of sensor locations to adequately cover the spatial heterogeneity, rather than expanding the duration of the measurements. </p><p>Future research will focus on including additional ancillary variables as model predictors, e.g. Land Surface Temperature or backscatter, and on applying the downscaling framework to other regions with similar environmental and climatic conditions.</p>


Author(s):  
H. Bendini ◽  
I. D. Sanches ◽  
T. S. Körting ◽  
L. M. G. Fonseca ◽  
A. J. B. Luiz ◽  
...  

The objective of this research is to classify agricultural land use in a region of the Cerrado (Brazilian Savanna) biome using a time series of Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) from Landsat 8 OLI. Phenological metrics extracted from EVI time series, a Random Forest algorithm and data mining techniques are used in the process of classification. The area of study is a region in the Cerrado in a region of the municipality of Casa Branca, São Paulo state, Brazil. The results are encouraging and demonstrate the potential of phenological parameters obtained from time series of OLI vegetation indices for agricultural land use classification.


GEOgraphia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (50) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Ribeiro Lacerda ◽  
Raúl Sanchéz Vicens

O surgimento de algoritmos de detecção de mudanças na vegetação na última década é impressionante. Mas os resultados gerados ainda possuem ruído que precisa ser tratado com a utilização de resultados de outros mapeamentos de cobertura vegetal. Além disso, a necessidade de gerar classes de uso do solo invariantes é importante para o melhor entendimento de processos que ocorrem em áreas florestais. Pensando nisso, este trabalho busca criar uma nova forma de mapear essas áreas invariáveis que possam ser utilizadas para mascarar ruídos e também como subsídio para outros estudos de conservação e restauração. A metodologia proposta aqui usa a plataforma Google Earth Engine e um algoritmo de aprendizado de máquina: o Random Forest, para classificar áreas de floresta invariáveis usando todo o acervo de imagens da série temporal Landsat, de uma só vez. Os resultados mostraram que a nova abordagem teve melhor desempenho do que o uso de técnicas mais tradicionais como a agregação de mapeamentos de uso e cobertura anuais, com uma acurácia global de 91,7%. O trabalho busca ainda contribuir com a comunidade de sensoriamento remoto ao apresentar, após exaustivos testes, as melhores opções de variáveis a serem utilizadas neste tipo de classificação. Palavras-chave: Séries Temporais, Detecção de Mudanças, Florestas, Google Earth Engine, Random Forest.DETECTION OF INVARIANT VEGETATION AREAS IN TIME SERIES USING RANDOM FOREST ALGORITHMAbstract: The emergence of vegetation change detection algorithms in the last decade is impressive. But the results still have a lot of noise that needs to be cleaned. And the data cleaning process still uses other landcover mapping results. Besides that, the necessity to generate invariant land use classes is important to know particularly to forest areas. Thinking about that, this paper seeks to create a new form of mapping these invariant areas that can be used to mask noise and as an input on other conservation and restoration studies. The methodology proposed here uses the Google Earth Engine platform and a Random Forest algorithm to classify invariant forest areas using all the image’s collection in the time series at once. The results showed that the new approach performed better than the use of more traditional techniques such as the aggregation of annual land-use and land-cover mappings, with an overall accuracy of 91.7%. Also, this paper seeks to contribute to the remote sensing community showing after exhaustive testing, good options of variables to use on this type of work. Keywords: Time Series, Change Detection, Forests, Google Earth Engine, Random Forest.DETECCIÓN DE ÁREAS DE VEGETACIÓN INVARIANTES EN SÉRIES TEMPORALES UTILIZANDO ALGORITMO RANDOM FORESTResumen: La aparición de algoritmos de detección de cambios en la vegetación en la última década es impresionante. Pero los resultados todavía tienen muchos ruidos que deben ser eliminados. Además, el proceso de limpieza de datos se basa en otros mapas de cobertura de la tierra. Además de eso, es importante conocer la necesidad de generar clases de uso de la tierra invariables, particularmente en las áreas forestales. Pensando en eso, este artículo busca crear una nueva forma de mapear estas áreas invariantes que se pueden utilizar para enmascarar el ruido y como un aporte para otros estudios de conservación y restauración. La metodología propuesta aquí utiliza la plataforma Google Earth Engine y un algoritmo de aprendizaje de máquina: o Random Forest para clasificar áreas invariantes de bosque, utilizando a la vez todas las imágenes de la serie temporal Landsat. Los resultados encontraron que el nuevo enfoque tuvo mejor desempeño que el uso de técnicas tradicionales, con una precisión global del 91,7%. Este trabajo busca además contribuir con la comunidad de la teledetección, mostrando mediante de exhaustivas pruebas, mejores opciones de variables para utilizar en este tipo de clasificación. Palabras clave: Series de Tiempo, Detección de Cambios, Bosques, Google Earth Engine, Random Forest.


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