scholarly journals Object-Based Image Analysis of Ground-Penetrating Radar Data for Archaic Hearths

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 2539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reagan L. Cornett ◽  
Eileen G. Ernenwein

Object-based image analysis (OBIA) has been increasingly used to identify terrain features of archaeological sites, but only recently to extract subsurface archaeological features from geophysical data. In this study, we use a semi-automated OBIA to identify Archaic (8000–1000 BC) hearths from Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) data collected at David Crockett Birthplace State Park in eastern Tennessee in the southeastern United States. The data were preprocessed using GPR-SLICE, Surfer, and Archaeofusion software, and amplitude depth slices were selected that contained anomalies ranging from 0.80 to 1.20 m below surface (BS). Next, the data were segmented within ESRI ArcMap GIS software using a global threshold and, after vectorization, classified using four attributes: area, perimeter, length-to-width ratio, and Circularity Index. The user-defined parameters were based on an excavated Archaic circular hearth found at a depth greater than one meter, which consisted of fire-cracked rock and had a diameter greater than one meter. These observations were in agreement with previous excavations of hearths at the site. Features that had a high probability of being Archaic hearths were further delineated by human interpretation from radargrams and then ground-truthed by auger testing. The semi-automated OBIA successfully predicted 15 probable Archaic hearths at depths ranging from 0.85 to 1.20 m BS. Observable spatial clustering of hearths may indicate episodes of seasonal occupation by small mobile groups during the Archaic Period.

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 551 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphael Knevels ◽  
Helene Petschko ◽  
Philip Leopold ◽  
Alexander Brenning

With the increased availability of high-resolution digital terrain models (HRDTM) generated using airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR), new opportunities for improved mapping of geohazards such as landslides arise. While the visual interpretation of LiDAR, HRDTM hillshades is a widely used approach, the automatic detection of landslides is promising to significantly speed up the compilation of inventories. Previous studies on automatic landslide detection often used a combination of optical imagery and geomorphometric data, and were implemented in commercial software. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential of open source software for automated landslide detection solely based on HRDTM-derived data in a study area in Burgenland, Austria. We implemented a geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) consisting of (1) the calculation of land-surface variables, textural features and shape metrics, (2) the automated optimization of segmentation scale parameters, (3) region-growing segmentation of the landscape, (4) the supervised classification of landslide parts (scarp and body) using support vector machines (SVM), and (5) an assessment of the overall classification performance using a landslide inventory. We used the free and open source data-analysis environment R and its coupled geographic information system (GIS) software for the analysis; our code is included in the Supplementary Materials. The developed approach achieved a good performance (κ = 0.42) in the identification of landslides.


Author(s):  
A. Osio ◽  
S. Lefèvre

Abstract. Automated mapping of heterogeneous riparian landscape is of high interest to assess our planet. Still, it remains a challenging task due to the occurrence of flooded vegetation. While both optical and radar images can be exploited, the latter has the advantage of being independent acquisition conditions. However, and despite their popularity, the threshold-based approaches commonly used present some drawbacks such as not taking into account the spatial context and providing mixed pixels within class boundaries. In this study, we propose a novel methodology to avoid such issues by using an object-based image analysis approach on polarimetric radar data. We use our workflow to map the degrading Acacia x. species along lake Nakuru Riparian reserve, and obtain highly-accurate results.


PIERS Online ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 567-572
Author(s):  
Hui Zhou ◽  
Dongling Qiu ◽  
Takashi Takenaka

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Melchior Grab ◽  
Enrico Mattea ◽  
Andreas Bauder ◽  
Matthias Huss ◽  
Lasse Rabenstein ◽  
...  

Abstract Accurate knowledge of the ice thickness distribution and glacier bed topography is essential for predicting dynamic glacier changes and the future developments of downstream hydrology, which are impacting the energy sector, tourism industry and natural hazard management. Using AIR-ETH, a new helicopter-borne ground-penetrating radar (GPR) platform, we measured the ice thickness of all large and most medium-sized glaciers in the Swiss Alps during the years 2016–20. Most of these had either never or only partially been surveyed before. With this new dataset, 251 glaciers – making up 81% of the glacierized area – are now covered by GPR surveys. For obtaining a comprehensive estimate of the overall glacier ice volume, ice thickness distribution and glacier bed topography, we combined this large amount of data with two independent modeling algorithms. This resulted in new maps of the glacier bed topography with unprecedented accuracy. The total glacier volume in the Swiss Alps was determined to be 58.7 ± 2.5 km3 in the year 2016. By projecting these results based on mass-balance data, we estimated a total ice volume of 52.9 ± 2.7 km3 for the year 2020. Data and modeling results are accessible in the form of the SwissGlacierThickness-R2020 data package.


2021 ◽  
Vol 193 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Oldeland ◽  
Rasmus Revermann ◽  
Jona Luther-Mosebach ◽  
Tillmann Buttschardt ◽  
Jan R. K. Lehmann

AbstractPlant species that negatively affect their environment by encroachment require constant management and monitoring through field surveys. Drones have been suggested to support field surveyors allowing more accurate mapping with just-in-time aerial imagery. Furthermore, object-based image analysis tools could increase the accuracy of species maps. However, only few studies compare species distribution maps resulting from traditional field surveys and object-based image analysis using drone imagery. We acquired drone imagery for a saltmarsh area (18 ha) on the Hallig Nordstrandischmoor (Germany) with patches of Elymus athericus, a tall grass which encroaches higher parts of saltmarshes. A field survey was conducted afterwards using the drone orthoimagery as a baseline. We used object-based image analysis (OBIA) to segment CIR imagery into polygons which were classified into eight land cover classes. Finally, we compared polygons of the field-based and OBIA-based maps visually and for location, area, and overlap before and after post-processing. OBIA-based classification yielded good results (kappa = 0.937) and agreed in general with the field-based maps (field = 6.29 ha, drone = 6.22 ha with E. athericus dominance). Post-processing revealed 0.31 ha of misclassified polygons, which were often related to water runnels or shadows, leaving 5.91 ha of E. athericus cover. Overlap of both polygon maps was only 70% resulting from many small patches identified where E. athericus was absent. In sum, drones can greatly support field surveys in monitoring of plant species by allowing for accurate species maps and just-in-time captured very-high-resolution imagery.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 830
Author(s):  
Adam R. Benjamin ◽  
Amr Abd-Elrahman ◽  
Lyn A. Gettys ◽  
Hartwig H. Hochmair ◽  
Kyle Thayer

This study investigates the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) mapping for monitoring the efficacy of invasive aquatic vegetation (AV) management on a floating-leaved AV species, Nymphoides cristata (CFH). The study site consists of 48 treatment plots (TPs). Based on six unique flights over two days at three different flight altitudes while using both a multispectral and RGB sensor, accuracy assessment of the final object-based image analysis (OBIA)-derived classified images yielded overall accuracies ranging from 89.6% to 95.4%. The multispectral sensor was significantly more accurate than the RGB sensor at measuring CFH areal coverage within each TP only with the highest multispectral, spatial resolution (2.7 cm/pix at 40 m altitude). When measuring response in the AV community area between the day of treatment and two weeks after treatment, there was no significant difference between the temporal area change from the reference datasets and the area changes derived from either the RGB or multispectral sensor. Thus, water resource managers need to weigh small gains in accuracy from using multispectral sensors against other operational considerations such as the additional processing time due to increased file sizes, higher financial costs for equipment procurements, and longer flight durations in the field when operating multispectral sensors.


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