One of the study objectives of global change is land use/cover change (LUCC) by using multiscale remotely sensed data on global and regional scale. In this paper, field sample, digital camera, Landsat-ETM+ (ETM+, Enha...One of the study objectives of global change is land use/cover change (LUCC) by using multiscale remotely sensed data on global and regional scale. In this paper, field sample, digital camera, Landsat-ETM+ (ETM+, Enhanced Thematic Mapper) image and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/the advanced very high resolution radiometer (NOAA/AVHRR) image were integrated to detect, simulate and analyze the vegetation fractional coverage of typical steppe in northern China. The results show: (1) Vegetation fractional coverage measured by digital camera is more precise than results measured by other methods. It can be used to validate other measuring results. (2) Vegetation fractional coverage measured by 1 m 2 field sample change fluctuantly for different observers and for different sample areas. In this experiment, the coverage is generally high compared with the result measured by digital camera, and the average absolute error is 9.92%, but two groups measure results, correlation coefficient r(2) = 0.89. (3) Three kinds of methods using remotely sensed data were adopted to simulate the vegetation fractional coverage. Average absolute errors of the vegetation fractional coverage, measured by ETM+ and NOAA, are respectively 7.03% and 7.83% compared with the result measured by digital camera. When NOAA pixel was decomposed by ETM+ pixels after geometrical registry, the average absolute errors measured by this method is 5.68% compared with the digital camera result. Correction coefficients of three results with digital camera result r(2) are respectively 0.78, 0.61 and 0.76. (4) The result of statistic model established by NOAA-NDVI (NDVI, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and the vegetation fractional coverage measured by digital camera show lower precision (r(2) = 0.65) than the result of statistic model established by ETM+-NDVI and digital camera coverage then converted to NOAA image (r(2) = 0.80). Pixel decomposability method improves the precision of measuring the vegetation fractional coverage on a large scale. This is a significant practice on scaling by using remotely sensed data. Integrated application of multi-scale remotely sensed data in earth observation will be an important approach to promoting measuring precision of ecological parameters.展开更多
For the application of soil moisture and ocean salinity（SMOS） remotely sensed sea surface salinity（SSS） products,SMOS SSS global maps and error characteristics have been investigated based on quality control infor...For the application of soil moisture and ocean salinity（SMOS） remotely sensed sea surface salinity（SSS） products,SMOS SSS global maps and error characteristics have been investigated based on quality control information.The results show that the errors of SMOS SSS products are distributed zonally,i.e.,relatively small in the tropical oceans,but much greater in the southern oceans in the Southern Hemisphere（negative bias） and along the southern,northern and some other oceanic margins（positive or negative bias）.The physical elements responsible for these errors include wind,temperature,and coastal terrain and so on.Errors in the southern oceans are due to the bias in an SSS retrieval algorithm caused by the coexisting high wind speed and low temperature; errors along the oceanic margins are due to the bias in a brightness temperature（TB） reconstruction caused by the high contrast between L-band emissivities from ice or land and from ocean; in addition,some other systematic errors are due to the bias in TB observation caused by a radio frequency interference and a radiometer receivers drift,etc.The findings will contribute to the scientific correction and appropriate application of the SMOS SSS products.展开更多
Traditional methods of extracting the ocean wave eddy information from remotely sensed imagery mainly use the edge detection technology such as Canny and Hough operators. However, due to the complexities of ocean eddi...Traditional methods of extracting the ocean wave eddy information from remotely sensed imagery mainly use the edge detection technology such as Canny and Hough operators. However, due to the complexities of ocean eddies and image itself, it is sometimes difficult to successfully detect ocean eddies using these methods. A mnltifractal filtering technology is proposed for extraction of ocean eddies and demonstrated using NASA MODIS, SeaWiFS and NOAA satellite data set in the typical area, such as ocean west boundary current. Results showed that the new method has a superior performance over the traditional methods.展开更多
This paper describes an improved algorithm for fuzzy c-means clustering of remotely sensed data, by which the degree of fuzziness of the resultant classification is de- creased as comparing with that by a conventional...This paper describes an improved algorithm for fuzzy c-means clustering of remotely sensed data, by which the degree of fuzziness of the resultant classification is de- creased as comparing with that by a conventional algorithm: that is, the classification accura- cy is increased. This is achieved by incorporating covariance matrices at the level of individual classes rather than assuming a global one. Empirical results from a fuzzy classification of an Edinburgh suburban land cover confirmed the improved performance of the new algorithm for fuzzy c-means clustering, in particular when fuzziness is also accommodated in the assumed reference data.展开更多
In this article, the extension to three dimensions (3D) of the blending technique that has been widely used in two dimensions (2D) to calibrate ocean chlorophyll is presented. The results thus obtained revealed a very...In this article, the extension to three dimensions (3D) of the blending technique that has been widely used in two dimensions (2D) to calibrate ocean chlorophyll is presented. The results thus obtained revealed a very high degree of efficiency when predicting observed values of ocean chlorophyll. The mean squared difference between the predicted and observed values of ocean chlorophyll when 3D technique was used fell far below the tolerance level which was set to the difference between satellite and observed in-situ values. The resulting blended field did not only provide better predictions of the in situ observations in areas where bottle samples cannot be obtained but also provided a smooth variation of the distribution of ocean chlorophyll throughout the year. An added advantage is its computational efficiency since data that would have been treated at least four times would be treated only once. With the advent of these results, it is believed that the modelling of the ocean life cycle will become more realistic.展开更多
An extended self-organizing map for supervised classification is proposed in this paper. Unlike other traditional SOMs, the model has an input layer, a Kohonen layer, and an output layer. The number of neurons in the ...An extended self-organizing map for supervised classification is proposed in this paper. Unlike other traditional SOMs, the model has an input layer, a Kohonen layer, and an output layer. The number of neurons in the input layer depends on the dimensionality of input patterns. The number of neurons in the output layer equals the number of the desired classes. The number of neurons in the Kohonen layer may be a few to several thousands, which depends on the complexity of classification problems and the classification precision. Each training sample is expressed by a pair of vectors ： an input vector and a class codebook vector. When a training sample is input into the model, Kohonen＇s competitive learning rule is applied to selecting the winning neuron from the Kohouen layer and the weight coefficients connecting all the neurons in the input layer with both the winning neuron and its neighbors in the Kohonen layer are modified to be closer to the input vector, and those connecting all the neurons around the winning neuron within a certain diameter in the Kohonen layer with all the neurons in the output layer are adjusted to be closer to the class codebook vector. If the number of training sam- ples is sufficiently large and the learning epochs iterate enough times, the model will be able to serve as a supervised classifier. The model has been tentatively applied to the supervised classification of multispectral remotely sensed data. The author compared the performances of the extended SOM and BPN in remotely sensed data classification. The investigation manifests that the extended SOM is feasible for supervised classification.展开更多
We evaluated the use of spatial sampling and satellite images to identify deforested areas in Wonju, South Korea. The changes in land cover were identified using a grid of sample points overlaid onto medium and high-r...We evaluated the use of spatial sampling and satellite images to identify deforested areas in Wonju, South Korea. The changes in land cover were identified using a grid of sample points overlaid onto medium and high-resolution remote sensing （RS） satellite images. Deforestation identified in this way （hereafter, RSD） was compared to administrative data on deforestation. We also compared high-resolution satellite images （HR-RSD） and actual deforestation based on categories which were Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data. RSD generated by medium-resolution satellite images overesti- mated the amount of deforested area by 1.5-2.4 times the actual deforested area, whereas RSD generated by HR- RSD underestimated the amount of deforested area by 0.4-0.9 times the actual area. The highest degree of matching （90 %） was found in HR-RSD with a grid interval of 500 m and the accuracy of HR-RSD was the highest, at 67 %. The results also revealed that the largest cause of deforestation was the establishment of settlements followed by conversion to cropland and grassland. We conclude that for the identification of deforestation using satellite images, HR-RSD with a grid interval of 500 m is most suitable.展开更多
In order to minimise the bushfires negative impacts on society, an efficient andreliable bushfire detection system was proposed to assess the devastated effects of the2009 Victorian bushfires.It is possible to utilise...In order to minimise the bushfires negative impacts on society, an efficient andreliable bushfire detection system was proposed to assess the devastated effects of the2009 Victorian bushfires.It is possible to utilise the repetitive capability of satellite remotesensing imagery to identify the location of change to the Earth's surface and integrate thedifferent remotely sensed indices.The results confirm that the procedure can offer essentialspatial information for bushfire assessment.展开更多
Challenges in Big Data analysis arise due to the way the data are recorded, maintained, processed and stored. We demonstrate that a hierarchical, multivariate, statistical machine learning algorithm, namely Boosted Re...Challenges in Big Data analysis arise due to the way the data are recorded, maintained, processed and stored. We demonstrate that a hierarchical, multivariate, statistical machine learning algorithm, namely Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) can address Big Data challenges to drive decision making. The challenge of this study is lack of interoperability since the data, a collection of GIS shapefiles, remotely sensed imagery, and aggregated and interpolated spatio-temporal information, are stored in monolithic hardware components. For the modelling process, it was necessary to create one common input file. By merging the data sources together, a structured but noisy input file, showing inconsistencies and redundancies, was created. Here, it is shown that BRT can process different data granularities, heterogeneous data and missingness. In particular, BRT has the advantage of dealing with missing data by default by allowing a split on whether or not a value is missing as well as what the value is. Most importantly, the BRT offers a wide range of possibilities regarding the interpretation of results and variable selection is automatically performed by considering how frequently a variable is used to define a split in the tree. A comparison with two similar regression models (Random Forests and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator, LASSO) shows that BRT outperforms these in this instance. BRT can also be a starting point for sophisticated hierarchical modelling in real world scenarios. For example, a single or ensemble approach of BRT could be tested with existing models in order to improve results for a wide range of data-driven decisions and applications.展开更多
The Soil Conservation Monitorins Information System (SCMIS) presented in this paper is oriented to soil erosion control, resources exploitation, utilization, planning and management for a small watershed (about 10 sq....The Soil Conservation Monitorins Information System (SCMIS) presented in this paper is oriented to soil erosion control, resources exploitation, utilization, planning and management for a small watershed (about 10 sq. km.) on the Loess Plateau. It sums up Remote sensing (RS), Geographical Information System (GIS) and Expert System (ES) and consists of a integrated system. As a basic level information system of Loess Plateau, its perfection and psreading will bring about a great advance in resources exploitation and management of Loess Plateau.展开更多
A comprehensive method of image classification was developed for monitoring land use dynamics in Chanthaburi Province of Tailand. RS (Remote Sensing), GIS (Geographical Information System), GPS (Global Positioning Sys...A comprehensive method of image classification was developed for monitoring land use dynamics in Chanthaburi Province of Tailand. RS (Remote Sensing), GIS (Geographical Information System), GPS (Global Positioning System) and ancillary data were combined by the method which adopts the main idea of classifying images by steps from decision tree method and the hybridized supervised and unsupervised classification. An integration of automatic image interpretation, ancillary materials and expert knowledge was realized. Two subscenes of Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) images of bands 3, 4 and 5 obtained on December 15, 1992, and January 17, 1999, were used for image processing and spatial data analysis in the study. The overall accuracy of the results of classification reached 90%, which was verified by field check.Results showed that shrimp farm land, urban and traffic land, barren land, bush and agricultural developing area increased in area, mangrove, paddy field, swamp and marsh land, orchard and plantation, and tropical grass land decreased, and the forest land kept almost stable. Ecological analysis on the land use changes showed that more attentions should be paid on the effect of land development on ecological environment in the future land planning and management.展开更多
Early crop yield forecasting is important for food safety as well as large-scale food related planning. The phenology-adjusted spectral indices derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer （MODIS） data...Early crop yield forecasting is important for food safety as well as large-scale food related planning. The phenology-adjusted spectral indices derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer （MODIS） data were used to develop liner regression models with the county-level corn yield data in Northeast China. We also compared the different spectral indices in predicting yield. The results showed that, using Enhanced Vegetation Index （EVI）, Normalized Difference Water Index （NDWI） and Land Surface Water Index （LSWI）, the best time to predict corn yields was 55-60 days after green-up date. LSWI showed the strongest correlation （R2=0.568）, followed by EVI （R2=0.497） and NDWI （R2=0.495）. The peak correlation between Wide Dynamic Range Vegetation Index （WDRVI） and yield was detected 85 days after green-up date （RZ=0.506）. The correlation was generally low for Normalized Difference Vegetation Index （NDVI） （R2=0.385） and no obvious peak correlation existed for NDVI. The coefficients of determination of the different spectral indices varied from year to year, which were greater in 2001 and 2004 than in other years. Leave-one-year-out approach was used to test the performance of the model. Normalized root mean square error （NRMSE） ranged from 7.3 to 16.9% for different spectral indices. Overall, our results showed that crop phenology-tuned spectral indices were feasible and helpful for regional corn yield forecasting.展开更多
Impervious surfaces are the result of urbanization that can be explicitly quantified, managed and controlled at each stage of land development. It is a very useful environmental indicator that can be used to measure t...Impervious surfaces are the result of urbanization that can be explicitly quantified, managed and controlled at each stage of land development. It is a very useful environmental indicator that can be used to measure the impacts of urbanization on surface runoff, water quality, air quality, biodiversity and rnicroclimate. Therefore, accurate estimation of impervious surfaces is critical for urban environmental monitoring, land management, decision-making and urban planning. Many approaches have been developed to estimate surface imperviousness, using remotely sensed data with various spatial resolutions. However, few studies, have investigated the effects of spatial resolution on estimating surface imperviousness. We compare medium-resolution Landsat data with high-resolution SPOT images to quantify the imperviousness in Beijing, China. The results indicated that the overall 91% accuracy of estimates of imperviousness based on TM data was considerably higher than the 81% accuracy of the SPOT data. The higher resolution SPOT data did not always predict the imperviousness of the land better than the TM data. At the whole city level, the TM data better predicts the percentage cover of impervious surfaces. At the sub-city level, however, the ring belts from the central core to the urban-rural peripheral, the SPOT data may better predict the imperviousness. These results highlighted the need to combine multiple resolution data to quantify the percentage of imperviousness, as higher resolution data do not necessarily lead to more accurate estimates. The methodology and results in this study can be utilized to identify the most suitable remote sensing data to quickly and efficiently extract the pattern of the impervious land, which could provide the base for further study on many related urban environmental problems.展开更多
With the wide use of high-resolution remotely sensed imagery, the object-oriented remotely sensed informa- tion classification pattern has been intensively studied. Starting with the definition of object-oriented remo...With the wide use of high-resolution remotely sensed imagery, the object-oriented remotely sensed informa- tion classification pattern has been intensively studied. Starting with the definition of object-oriented remotely sensed information classification pattern and a literature review of related research progress, this paper sums up 4 developing phases of object-oriented classification pattern during the past 20 years. Then, we discuss the three aspects of method- ology in detail, namely remotely sensed imagery segmentation, feature analysis and feature selection, and classification rule generation, through comparing them with remotely sensed information classification method based on per-pixel. At last, this paper presents several points that need to be paid attention to in the future studies on object-oriented RS in- formation classification pattern: 1) developing robust and highly effective image segmentation algorithm for multi-spectral RS imagery; 2) improving the feature-set including edge, spatial-adjacent and temporal characteristics; 3) discussing the classification rule generation classifier based on the decision tree; 4) presenting evaluation methods for classification result by object-oriented classification pattern.展开更多
The Wenchuan earthquake triggered cascading disasters of landslides and debris flows that caused severe vegetation damage. Fracture zones can affect geodynamics and spatial pattern of vegetation damage. A segment trac...The Wenchuan earthquake triggered cascading disasters of landslides and debris flows that caused severe vegetation damage. Fracture zones can affect geodynamics and spatial pattern of vegetation damage. A segment tracing algorithm method was applied for identifying the regional fracture system through lineament extractions from a shaded digital elevation model with 25 m mesh for southern Wenchuan. Remote sensing and geographic information system techniques were used to analyze the spatiotemporal vegetation pattern. The relationship between vegetation type identified from satellite images and lineament density was used to characterize the distribution patterns of each vegetation type according to fracture zones. Broad-leaved forest, mixed forest, and farmland persist in areas with moderate lineament density. Deciduous broad-leaved and coniferous forest persists in less frac- tured areas. Shrub and meadow seem to be relatively evenly distributed across all lineament densities.Meadow, farmland, and shrub persist in the fractured areas. Changes of spatial structure and correlation between vegetation patterns before and after the earthquake were examined using semivariogram analysis of normalized difference vegetation indices derived from Landsat enhanced thematic mapper images. The sill values of the semivariograms show that the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation covers increased after the earthquake. Moreover, the anisotropic behaviors of the semivariograms coincide with the vegetation changes due to the strikes of fracture zones.展开更多
The Urban Heat Island (UHI) results in significant and sometimes dramatic increases in air temperature differences between the urban environment and its surrounding areas. The heat island structure may extend from the...The Urban Heat Island (UHI) results in significant and sometimes dramatic increases in air temperature differences between the urban environment and its surrounding areas. The heat island structure may extend from the ground to the top of roofs and canopy levels above ground. The Urban Heat Island effect is a leading factor in a long list of human health problems which are expected to increase with the rapid growth of urban populations and projected future climate change. Urban heat island studies can be conducted through either direct measurements of air temperature using automobile transects and weather station networks or through measuring surface temperature using airborne or satellite remote sensing. In this study, UHI was investigated over the Greater Cairo during both summer and winter seasons over two different dates. Landsat 7 ETM+ data were used and the mono-window algorithm was applied in the study. Results emphasis that both types of heat islands exist in the study area i.e. the surface and the atmospheric heat islands. Temperature differences ranged between 0.5°C to 3.5°C and these are much related to the existing land use/covers. It could be concluded that expansion of urban areas in Greater Cairo has led to increased thermal radiation of land surface on the highly populated areas.展开更多
Water on the Earth’s surface is an essential part of the hydrological cycle. Water resources include surface waters, groundwater, lakes, inland waters, rivers, coastal waters, and aquifers. Monitoring lake dynamics i...Water on the Earth’s surface is an essential part of the hydrological cycle. Water resources include surface waters, groundwater, lakes, inland waters, rivers, coastal waters, and aquifers. Monitoring lake dynamics is critical to favor sustainable management of water resources on Earth. In cryosphere, lake ice cover is a robust indicator of local climate variability and change. Therefore, it is necessary to review recent methods, technologies, and satellite sensors employed for the extraction of lakes from satellite imagery. The present review focuses on the comprehensive evaluation of existing methods for extraction of lake or water body features from remotely sensed optical data. We summarize pixel-based, object-based, hybrid, spectral index based, target and spectral matching methods employed in extracting lake features in urban and cryospheric environments. To our knowledge, almost all of the published research studies on the extraction of surface lakes in cryospheric environments have essentially used satellite remote sensing data and geospatial methods. Satellite sensors of varying spatial, temporal and spectral resolutions have been used to extract and analyze the information regarding surface water. Multispectral remote sensing has been widely utilized in cryospheric studies and has employed a variety of electro-optical satellite sensor systems for characterization and extraction of various cryospheric features, such as glaciers, sea ice, lakes and rivers, the extent of snow and ice, and icebergs. It is apparent that the most common methods for extracting water bodies use single band-based threshold methods, spectral index ratio (SIR)-based multiband methods, image segmentation methods, spectral-matching methods, and target detection methods (unsupervised, supervised and hybrid). A Synergetic fusion of various remote sensing methods is also proposed to improve water information extraction accuracies. The methods developed so far are not generic rather they are specific to either the location or satellite imagery or to the type of the feature to be extracted. Lots of factors are responsible for leading to inaccurate results of lake-feature extraction in cryospheric regions, e.g. the mountain shadow which also appears as a dark pixel is often misclassified as an open lake. The methods which are working well in the cryospheric environment for feature extraction or landcover classification does not really guarantee that they will be working in the same manner for the urban environment. Thus, in coming years, it is expected that much of the work will be done on object-based approach or hybrid approach involving both pixel as well as object-based technology. A more accurate, versatile and robust method is necessary to be developed that would work independent of geographical location (for both urban and cryosphere) and type of optical sensor.展开更多
Sand dune movement is a hazardous phenomenon in Egypt and creates major threat on the existing land use and land cover as well as developmental plans. This paper studied the sand dune morphology and quantified the rat...Sand dune movement is a hazardous phenomenon in Egypt and creates major threat on the existing land use and land cover as well as developmental plans. This paper studied the sand dune morphology and quantified the rate of sand dune movements and direction in a newly developed project in the southwest of Egypt. Two dates of satellite imageries were used to trace the Barchan dunes at various sites with different morphological properties to estimate the annual movement rate based on point to point geo-correlations. 149 dunes of the common sand dunes in the area of study including barchans and transverse dunes were studied to accurately determine their rate of movements, which ranged from 1.3 to 19.3 my-1. The direction of sand dune movements was mainly to the south and slightly southeast with range from 265 to 295 degrees. The quantification of sand dune movement and direction has, indeed, enabled to determine the major threat on the exiting land use and land cover as well as the newly developmental projects.展开更多
The acquisition of spatial-temporal information of frozen soil is fundamental for the study of frozen soil dynamics and its feedback to climate change in cold regions.With advancement of remote sensing and better unde...The acquisition of spatial-temporal information of frozen soil is fundamental for the study of frozen soil dynamics and its feedback to climate change in cold regions.With advancement of remote sensing and better understanding of frozen soil dynamics,discrimination of freeze and thaw status of surface soil based on passive microwave remote sensing and numerical simulation of frozen soil processes under water and heat transfer principles provides valuable means for regional and global frozen soil dynamic monitoring and systematic spatial-temporal responses to global change.However,as an important data source of frozen soil processes,remotely sensed information has not yet been fully utilized in the numerical simulation of frozen soil processes.Although great progress has been made in remote sensing and frozen soil physics,yet few frozen soil research has been done on the application of remotely sensed information in association with the numerical model for frozen soil process studies.In the present study,a distributed numerical model for frozen soil dynamic studies based on coupled water-heat transferring theory in association with remotely sensed frozen soil datasets was developed.In order to reduce the uncertainty of the simulation,the remotely sensed frozen soil information was used to monitor and modify relevant parameters in the process of model simulation.The remotely sensed information and numerically simulated spatial-temporal frozen soil processes were validated by in-situ field observations in cold regions near the town of Naqu on the East-Central Tibetan Plateau.The results suggest that the overall accuracy of the algorithm for discriminating freeze and thaw status of surface soil based on passive microwave remote sensing was more than 95%.These results provided an accurate initial freeze and thaw status of surface soil for coupling and calibrating the numerical model of this study.The numerically simulated frozen soil processes demonstrated good performance of the distributed numerical model based on the coupled water-heat transferring theory.The relatively larger uncertainties of the numerical model were found in alternating periods between freezing and thawing of surface soil.The average accuracy increased by about 5%after integrating remotely sensed information on the surface soil.The simulation accuracy was significantly improved,especially in transition periods between freezing and thawing of the surface soil.展开更多
Soil erosion is a threat to the water quality constituents of sediments and nutrients and can cause long-term environmental damages.One important parameter to quantify the risk of soil loss from erosion is the crop an...Soil erosion is a threat to the water quality constituents of sediments and nutrients and can cause long-term environmental damages.One important parameter to quantify the risk of soil loss from erosion is the crop and cover management factor(C-factor),which represents how cropping and management practices affect the rates and potential risk of soil erosion.We developed remotely sensed data-driven models for dynamic predictions of C-factor by implementing dynamic land cover modeling using the SWAT(Soil and Water Assessment Tool)model on a watershed scale.The remotely sensed processed variables included the enhanced vegetation index(EVI),the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by green vegetation(FPAR),leaf area index(LAI),soil available water content(AWC),slope gradient(SG),and ratio of area(AR)of every hydrologic response unit(HRU)to that of the total watershed,comprising unique land cover,soil type,and slope gradient characteristics within the Fish River catchment in Alabama,USA between 2001 and 2014.Linear regressions,spatial trend analysis,correlation matrices,forward stepwise multivariable regression(FSMR),and 2-fold cross-validation were conducted to evaluate whether there were possible associations between the C-factor and EVI with the successive addition of remotely sensed environmental factors.Based on the data analysis and modeling,we found a significant association between the C-factor and EVI with the synergy of the environmental factors FPAR,LAI,AWC,AR,and SG(predicted R^(2)(R^(2)_(pred))=0.51;R^(2)=0.68,n=3220,P<0.15).The results showed that the developed FSMR model constituting the non-conventional factors AWC(R^(2)_(pred)=0.32;R^(2)=0.48,n=3220,P<0.05)and FPAR(R^(2)_(pred)=0.13;R^(2)=0.28,n=3220,P=0.31)was an improved fit for the watershed C-factor.In conclusion,the union of dynamic variables related to vegetation(EVI,FPAR,and LAI),soil(AWC),and topography(AR and SG)can be utilized for spatiotemporal C-factor estimation and to monitor watershed erosion.展开更多
文摘One of the study objectives of global change is land use/cover change (LUCC) by using multiscale remotely sensed data on global and regional scale. In this paper, field sample, digital camera, Landsat-ETM+ (ETM+, Enhanced Thematic Mapper) image and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/the advanced very high resolution radiometer (NOAA/AVHRR) image were integrated to detect, simulate and analyze the vegetation fractional coverage of typical steppe in northern China. The results show: (1) Vegetation fractional coverage measured by digital camera is more precise than results measured by other methods. It can be used to validate other measuring results. (2) Vegetation fractional coverage measured by 1 m 2 field sample change fluctuantly for different observers and for different sample areas. In this experiment, the coverage is generally high compared with the result measured by digital camera, and the average absolute error is 9.92%, but two groups measure results, correlation coefficient r(2) = 0.89. (3) Three kinds of methods using remotely sensed data were adopted to simulate the vegetation fractional coverage. Average absolute errors of the vegetation fractional coverage, measured by ETM+ and NOAA, are respectively 7.03% and 7.83% compared with the result measured by digital camera. When NOAA pixel was decomposed by ETM+ pixels after geometrical registry, the average absolute errors measured by this method is 5.68% compared with the digital camera result. Correction coefficients of three results with digital camera result r(2) are respectively 0.78, 0.61 and 0.76. (4) The result of statistic model established by NOAA-NDVI (NDVI, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and the vegetation fractional coverage measured by digital camera show lower precision (r(2) = 0.65) than the result of statistic model established by ETM+-NDVI and digital camera coverage then converted to NOAA image (r(2) = 0.80). Pixel decomposability method improves the precision of measuring the vegetation fractional coverage on a large scale. This is a significant practice on scaling by using remotely sensed data. Integrated application of multi-scale remotely sensed data in earth observation will be an important approach to promoting measuring precision of ecological parameters.
基金The National Natural Science Fund of China under contact No.41276088the National Natural Science Fund for Young Scholars of China under contact Nos 41206002 and 41306010
文摘For the application of soil moisture and ocean salinity（SMOS） remotely sensed sea surface salinity（SSS） products,SMOS SSS global maps and error characteristics have been investigated based on quality control information.The results show that the errors of SMOS SSS products are distributed zonally,i.e.,relatively small in the tropical oceans,but much greater in the southern oceans in the Southern Hemisphere（negative bias） and along the southern,northern and some other oceanic margins（positive or negative bias）.The physical elements responsible for these errors include wind,temperature,and coastal terrain and so on.Errors in the southern oceans are due to the bias in an SSS retrieval algorithm caused by the coexisting high wind speed and low temperature; errors along the oceanic margins are due to the bias in a brightness temperature（TB） reconstruction caused by the high contrast between L-band emissivities from ice or land and from ocean; in addition,some other systematic errors are due to the bias in TB observation caused by a radio frequency interference and a radiometer receivers drift,etc.The findings will contribute to the scientific correction and appropriate application of the SMOS SSS products.
文摘Traditional methods of extracting the ocean wave eddy information from remotely sensed imagery mainly use the edge detection technology such as Canny and Hough operators. However, due to the complexities of ocean eddies and image itself, it is sometimes difficult to successfully detect ocean eddies using these methods. A mnltifractal filtering technology is proposed for extraction of ocean eddies and demonstrated using NASA MODIS, SeaWiFS and NOAA satellite data set in the typical area, such as ocean west boundary current. Results showed that the new method has a superior performance over the traditional methods.
文摘This paper describes an improved algorithm for fuzzy c-means clustering of remotely sensed data, by which the degree of fuzziness of the resultant classification is de- creased as comparing with that by a conventional algorithm: that is, the classification accura- cy is increased. This is achieved by incorporating covariance matrices at the level of individual classes rather than assuming a global one. Empirical results from a fuzzy classification of an Edinburgh suburban land cover confirmed the improved performance of the new algorithm for fuzzy c-means clustering, in particular when fuzziness is also accommodated in the assumed reference data.
文摘In this article, the extension to three dimensions (3D) of the blending technique that has been widely used in two dimensions (2D) to calibrate ocean chlorophyll is presented. The results thus obtained revealed a very high degree of efficiency when predicting observed values of ocean chlorophyll. The mean squared difference between the predicted and observed values of ocean chlorophyll when 3D technique was used fell far below the tolerance level which was set to the difference between satellite and observed in-situ values. The resulting blended field did not only provide better predictions of the in situ observations in areas where bottle samples cannot be obtained but also provided a smooth variation of the distribution of ocean chlorophyll throughout the year. An added advantage is its computational efficiency since data that would have been treated at least four times would be treated only once. With the advent of these results, it is believed that the modelling of the ocean life cycle will become more realistic.
基金Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40872193)
文摘An extended self-organizing map for supervised classification is proposed in this paper. Unlike other traditional SOMs, the model has an input layer, a Kohonen layer, and an output layer. The number of neurons in the input layer depends on the dimensionality of input patterns. The number of neurons in the output layer equals the number of the desired classes. The number of neurons in the Kohonen layer may be a few to several thousands, which depends on the complexity of classification problems and the classification precision. Each training sample is expressed by a pair of vectors ： an input vector and a class codebook vector. When a training sample is input into the model, Kohonen＇s competitive learning rule is applied to selecting the winning neuron from the Kohouen layer and the weight coefficients connecting all the neurons in the input layer with both the winning neuron and its neighbors in the Kohonen layer are modified to be closer to the input vector, and those connecting all the neurons around the winning neuron within a certain diameter in the Kohonen layer with all the neurons in the output layer are adjusted to be closer to the class codebook vector. If the number of training sam- ples is sufficiently large and the learning epochs iterate enough times, the model will be able to serve as a supervised classifier. The model has been tentatively applied to the supervised classification of multispectral remotely sensed data. The author compared the performances of the extended SOM and BPN in remotely sensed data classification. The investigation manifests that the extended SOM is feasible for supervised classification.
文摘We evaluated the use of spatial sampling and satellite images to identify deforested areas in Wonju, South Korea. The changes in land cover were identified using a grid of sample points overlaid onto medium and high-resolution remote sensing （RS） satellite images. Deforestation identified in this way （hereafter, RSD） was compared to administrative data on deforestation. We also compared high-resolution satellite images （HR-RSD） and actual deforestation based on categories which were Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data. RSD generated by medium-resolution satellite images overesti- mated the amount of deforested area by 1.5-2.4 times the actual deforested area, whereas RSD generated by HR- RSD underestimated the amount of deforested area by 0.4-0.9 times the actual area. The highest degree of matching （90 %） was found in HR-RSD with a grid interval of 500 m and the accuracy of HR-RSD was the highest, at 67 %. The results also revealed that the largest cause of deforestation was the establishment of settlements followed by conversion to cropland and grassland. We conclude that for the identification of deforestation using satellite images, HR-RSD with a grid interval of 500 m is most suitable.
文摘In order to minimise the bushfires negative impacts on society, an efficient andreliable bushfire detection system was proposed to assess the devastated effects of the2009 Victorian bushfires.It is possible to utilise the repetitive capability of satellite remotesensing imagery to identify the location of change to the Earth's surface and integrate thedifferent remotely sensed indices.The results confirm that the procedure can offer essentialspatial information for bushfire assessment.
文摘Challenges in Big Data analysis arise due to the way the data are recorded, maintained, processed and stored. We demonstrate that a hierarchical, multivariate, statistical machine learning algorithm, namely Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) can address Big Data challenges to drive decision making. The challenge of this study is lack of interoperability since the data, a collection of GIS shapefiles, remotely sensed imagery, and aggregated and interpolated spatio-temporal information, are stored in monolithic hardware components. For the modelling process, it was necessary to create one common input file. By merging the data sources together, a structured but noisy input file, showing inconsistencies and redundancies, was created. Here, it is shown that BRT can process different data granularities, heterogeneous data and missingness. In particular, BRT has the advantage of dealing with missing data by default by allowing a split on whether or not a value is missing as well as what the value is. Most importantly, the BRT offers a wide range of possibilities regarding the interpretation of results and variable selection is automatically performed by considering how frequently a variable is used to define a split in the tree. A comparison with two similar regression models (Random Forests and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator, LASSO) shows that BRT outperforms these in this instance. BRT can also be a starting point for sophisticated hierarchical modelling in real world scenarios. For example, a single or ensemble approach of BRT could be tested with existing models in order to improve results for a wide range of data-driven decisions and applications.
文摘The Soil Conservation Monitorins Information System (SCMIS) presented in this paper is oriented to soil erosion control, resources exploitation, utilization, planning and management for a small watershed (about 10 sq. km.) on the Loess Plateau. It sums up Remote sensing (RS), Geographical Information System (GIS) and Expert System (ES) and consists of a integrated system. As a basic level information system of Loess Plateau, its perfection and psreading will bring about a great advance in resources exploitation and management of Loess Plateau.
基金Project supported by the Tingthanathikul Foundation of Thailand, the Provincial Natural Science Foun- dation of Jiangxi (No. 0230025) the Open Research Foundation of Hubei Provincial Key Labaratory of Waterlogged Disaster and Wetland Agriculture (No. H
文摘A comprehensive method of image classification was developed for monitoring land use dynamics in Chanthaburi Province of Tailand. RS (Remote Sensing), GIS (Geographical Information System), GPS (Global Positioning System) and ancillary data were combined by the method which adopts the main idea of classifying images by steps from decision tree method and the hybridized supervised and unsupervised classification. An integration of automatic image interpretation, ancillary materials and expert knowledge was realized. Two subscenes of Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) images of bands 3, 4 and 5 obtained on December 15, 1992, and January 17, 1999, were used for image processing and spatial data analysis in the study. The overall accuracy of the results of classification reached 90%, which was verified by field check.Results showed that shrimp farm land, urban and traffic land, barren land, bush and agricultural developing area increased in area, mangrove, paddy field, swamp and marsh land, orchard and plantation, and tropical grass land decreased, and the forest land kept almost stable. Ecological analysis on the land use changes showed that more attentions should be paid on the effect of land development on ecological environment in the future land planning and management.
基金supported by the National Basic Research Program of China(2010CB950902)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(41371002)the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(XDA05090310)
文摘Early crop yield forecasting is important for food safety as well as large-scale food related planning. The phenology-adjusted spectral indices derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer （MODIS） data were used to develop liner regression models with the county-level corn yield data in Northeast China. We also compared the different spectral indices in predicting yield. The results showed that, using Enhanced Vegetation Index （EVI）, Normalized Difference Water Index （NDWI） and Land Surface Water Index （LSWI）, the best time to predict corn yields was 55-60 days after green-up date. LSWI showed the strongest correlation （R2=0.568）, followed by EVI （R2=0.497） and NDWI （R2=0.495）. The peak correlation between Wide Dynamic Range Vegetation Index （WDRVI） and yield was detected 85 days after green-up date （RZ=0.506）. The correlation was generally low for Normalized Difference Vegetation Index （NDVI） （R2=0.385） and no obvious peak correlation existed for NDVI. The coefficients of determination of the different spectral indices varied from year to year, which were greater in 2001 and 2004 than in other years. Leave-one-year-out approach was used to test the performance of the model. Normalized root mean square error （NRMSE） ranged from 7.3 to 16.9% for different spectral indices. Overall, our results showed that crop phenology-tuned spectral indices were feasible and helpful for regional corn yield forecasting.
基金supported by the National Basic Research Program (973) of China (No. 2008CB418104)the Major Programs of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KZCX1-YW-14-4-1)the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40901265)
文摘Impervious surfaces are the result of urbanization that can be explicitly quantified, managed and controlled at each stage of land development. It is a very useful environmental indicator that can be used to measure the impacts of urbanization on surface runoff, water quality, air quality, biodiversity and rnicroclimate. Therefore, accurate estimation of impervious surfaces is critical for urban environmental monitoring, land management, decision-making and urban planning. Many approaches have been developed to estimate surface imperviousness, using remotely sensed data with various spatial resolutions. However, few studies, have investigated the effects of spatial resolution on estimating surface imperviousness. We compare medium-resolution Landsat data with high-resolution SPOT images to quantify the imperviousness in Beijing, China. The results indicated that the overall 91% accuracy of estimates of imperviousness based on TM data was considerably higher than the 81% accuracy of the SPOT data. The higher resolution SPOT data did not always predict the imperviousness of the land better than the TM data. At the whole city level, the TM data better predicts the percentage cover of impervious surfaces. At the sub-city level, however, the ring belts from the central core to the urban-rural peripheral, the SPOT data may better predict the imperviousness. These results highlighted the need to combine multiple resolution data to quantify the percentage of imperviousness, as higher resolution data do not necessarily lead to more accurate estimates. The methodology and results in this study can be utilized to identify the most suitable remote sensing data to quickly and efficiently extract the pattern of the impervious land, which could provide the base for further study on many related urban environmental problems.
基金Under the auspices of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40301038), Talents Recruitment Foun-dation of Nanjing University
文摘With the wide use of high-resolution remotely sensed imagery, the object-oriented remotely sensed informa- tion classification pattern has been intensively studied. Starting with the definition of object-oriented remotely sensed information classification pattern and a literature review of related research progress, this paper sums up 4 developing phases of object-oriented classification pattern during the past 20 years. Then, we discuss the three aspects of method- ology in detail, namely remotely sensed imagery segmentation, feature analysis and feature selection, and classification rule generation, through comparing them with remotely sensed information classification method based on per-pixel. At last, this paper presents several points that need to be paid attention to in the future studies on object-oriented RS in- formation classification pattern: 1) developing robust and highly effective image segmentation algorithm for multi-spectral RS imagery; 2) improving the feature-set including edge, spatial-adjacent and temporal characteristics; 3) discussing the classification rule generation classifier based on the decision tree; 4) presenting evaluation methods for classification result by object-oriented classification pattern.
基金supported by the International Cooperation and Exchange Program of China (No. 31211130305)theYouth Talent Team Program of Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No.SDSQB-2012-01)
文摘The Wenchuan earthquake triggered cascading disasters of landslides and debris flows that caused severe vegetation damage. Fracture zones can affect geodynamics and spatial pattern of vegetation damage. A segment tracing algorithm method was applied for identifying the regional fracture system through lineament extractions from a shaded digital elevation model with 25 m mesh for southern Wenchuan. Remote sensing and geographic information system techniques were used to analyze the spatiotemporal vegetation pattern. The relationship between vegetation type identified from satellite images and lineament density was used to characterize the distribution patterns of each vegetation type according to fracture zones. Broad-leaved forest, mixed forest, and farmland persist in areas with moderate lineament density. Deciduous broad-leaved and coniferous forest persists in less frac- tured areas. Shrub and meadow seem to be relatively evenly distributed across all lineament densities.Meadow, farmland, and shrub persist in the fractured areas. Changes of spatial structure and correlation between vegetation patterns before and after the earthquake were examined using semivariogram analysis of normalized difference vegetation indices derived from Landsat enhanced thematic mapper images. The sill values of the semivariograms show that the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation covers increased after the earthquake. Moreover, the anisotropic behaviors of the semivariograms coincide with the vegetation changes due to the strikes of fracture zones.
文摘The Urban Heat Island (UHI) results in significant and sometimes dramatic increases in air temperature differences between the urban environment and its surrounding areas. The heat island structure may extend from the ground to the top of roofs and canopy levels above ground. The Urban Heat Island effect is a leading factor in a long list of human health problems which are expected to increase with the rapid growth of urban populations and projected future climate change. Urban heat island studies can be conducted through either direct measurements of air temperature using automobile transects and weather station networks or through measuring surface temperature using airborne or satellite remote sensing. In this study, UHI was investigated over the Greater Cairo during both summer and winter seasons over two different dates. Landsat 7 ETM+ data were used and the mono-window algorithm was applied in the study. Results emphasis that both types of heat islands exist in the study area i.e. the surface and the atmospheric heat islands. Temperature differences ranged between 0.5°C to 3.5°C and these are much related to the existing land use/covers. It could be concluded that expansion of urban areas in Greater Cairo has led to increased thermal radiation of land surface on the highly populated areas.
文摘Water on the Earth’s surface is an essential part of the hydrological cycle. Water resources include surface waters, groundwater, lakes, inland waters, rivers, coastal waters, and aquifers. Monitoring lake dynamics is critical to favor sustainable management of water resources on Earth. In cryosphere, lake ice cover is a robust indicator of local climate variability and change. Therefore, it is necessary to review recent methods, technologies, and satellite sensors employed for the extraction of lakes from satellite imagery. The present review focuses on the comprehensive evaluation of existing methods for extraction of lake or water body features from remotely sensed optical data. We summarize pixel-based, object-based, hybrid, spectral index based, target and spectral matching methods employed in extracting lake features in urban and cryospheric environments. To our knowledge, almost all of the published research studies on the extraction of surface lakes in cryospheric environments have essentially used satellite remote sensing data and geospatial methods. Satellite sensors of varying spatial, temporal and spectral resolutions have been used to extract and analyze the information regarding surface water. Multispectral remote sensing has been widely utilized in cryospheric studies and has employed a variety of electro-optical satellite sensor systems for characterization and extraction of various cryospheric features, such as glaciers, sea ice, lakes and rivers, the extent of snow and ice, and icebergs. It is apparent that the most common methods for extracting water bodies use single band-based threshold methods, spectral index ratio (SIR)-based multiband methods, image segmentation methods, spectral-matching methods, and target detection methods (unsupervised, supervised and hybrid). A Synergetic fusion of various remote sensing methods is also proposed to improve water information extraction accuracies. The methods developed so far are not generic rather they are specific to either the location or satellite imagery or to the type of the feature to be extracted. Lots of factors are responsible for leading to inaccurate results of lake-feature extraction in cryospheric regions, e.g. the mountain shadow which also appears as a dark pixel is often misclassified as an open lake. The methods which are working well in the cryospheric environment for feature extraction or landcover classification does not really guarantee that they will be working in the same manner for the urban environment. Thus, in coming years, it is expected that much of the work will be done on object-based approach or hybrid approach involving both pixel as well as object-based technology. A more accurate, versatile and robust method is necessary to be developed that would work independent of geographical location (for both urban and cryosphere) and type of optical sensor.
文摘Sand dune movement is a hazardous phenomenon in Egypt and creates major threat on the existing land use and land cover as well as developmental plans. This paper studied the sand dune morphology and quantified the rate of sand dune movements and direction in a newly developed project in the southwest of Egypt. Two dates of satellite imageries were used to trace the Barchan dunes at various sites with different morphological properties to estimate the annual movement rate based on point to point geo-correlations. 149 dunes of the common sand dunes in the area of study including barchans and transverse dunes were studied to accurately determine their rate of movements, which ranged from 1.3 to 19.3 my-1. The direction of sand dune movements was mainly to the south and slightly southeast with range from 265 to 295 degrees. The quantification of sand dune movement and direction has, indeed, enabled to determine the major threat on the exiting land use and land cover as well as the newly developmental projects.
基金This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of(Grant No.2016YFA0602302).
文摘The acquisition of spatial-temporal information of frozen soil is fundamental for the study of frozen soil dynamics and its feedback to climate change in cold regions.With advancement of remote sensing and better understanding of frozen soil dynamics,discrimination of freeze and thaw status of surface soil based on passive microwave remote sensing and numerical simulation of frozen soil processes under water and heat transfer principles provides valuable means for regional and global frozen soil dynamic monitoring and systematic spatial-temporal responses to global change.However,as an important data source of frozen soil processes,remotely sensed information has not yet been fully utilized in the numerical simulation of frozen soil processes.Although great progress has been made in remote sensing and frozen soil physics,yet few frozen soil research has been done on the application of remotely sensed information in association with the numerical model for frozen soil process studies.In the present study,a distributed numerical model for frozen soil dynamic studies based on coupled water-heat transferring theory in association with remotely sensed frozen soil datasets was developed.In order to reduce the uncertainty of the simulation,the remotely sensed frozen soil information was used to monitor and modify relevant parameters in the process of model simulation.The remotely sensed information and numerically simulated spatial-temporal frozen soil processes were validated by in-situ field observations in cold regions near the town of Naqu on the East-Central Tibetan Plateau.The results suggest that the overall accuracy of the algorithm for discriminating freeze and thaw status of surface soil based on passive microwave remote sensing was more than 95%.These results provided an accurate initial freeze and thaw status of surface soil for coupling and calibrating the numerical model of this study.The numerically simulated frozen soil processes demonstrated good performance of the distributed numerical model based on the coupled water-heat transferring theory.The relatively larger uncertainties of the numerical model were found in alternating periods between freezing and thawing of surface soil.The average accuracy increased by about 5%after integrating remotely sensed information on the surface soil.The simulation accuracy was significantly improved,especially in transition periods between freezing and thawing of the surface soil.
文摘Soil erosion is a threat to the water quality constituents of sediments and nutrients and can cause long-term environmental damages.One important parameter to quantify the risk of soil loss from erosion is the crop and cover management factor(C-factor),which represents how cropping and management practices affect the rates and potential risk of soil erosion.We developed remotely sensed data-driven models for dynamic predictions of C-factor by implementing dynamic land cover modeling using the SWAT(Soil and Water Assessment Tool)model on a watershed scale.The remotely sensed processed variables included the enhanced vegetation index(EVI),the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by green vegetation(FPAR),leaf area index(LAI),soil available water content(AWC),slope gradient(SG),and ratio of area(AR)of every hydrologic response unit(HRU)to that of the total watershed,comprising unique land cover,soil type,and slope gradient characteristics within the Fish River catchment in Alabama,USA between 2001 and 2014.Linear regressions,spatial trend analysis,correlation matrices,forward stepwise multivariable regression(FSMR),and 2-fold cross-validation were conducted to evaluate whether there were possible associations between the C-factor and EVI with the successive addition of remotely sensed environmental factors.Based on the data analysis and modeling,we found a significant association between the C-factor and EVI with the synergy of the environmental factors FPAR,LAI,AWC,AR,and SG(predicted R^(2)(R^(2)_(pred))=0.51;R^(2)=0.68,n=3220,P<0.15).The results showed that the developed FSMR model constituting the non-conventional factors AWC(R^(2)_(pred)=0.32;R^(2)=0.48,n=3220,P<0.05)and FPAR(R^(2)_(pred)=0.13;R^(2)=0.28,n=3220,P=0.31)was an improved fit for the watershed C-factor.In conclusion,the union of dynamic variables related to vegetation(EVI,FPAR,and LAI),soil(AWC),and topography(AR and SG)can be utilized for spatiotemporal C-factor estimation and to monitor watershed erosion.
