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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Population Distribution; Optimization; Hu Huanyong Line; Land Use Efficiency; China
Online: 8 August 2018 (08:46:57 CEST)
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With the accelerating urbanization process, the population increasingly concentrates in urban areas. In view of the special situation in China and a series of problems in the process of rapid urbanization, there were no reasonable measures for optimizing the population pattern. This study explored the distribution pattern of the Chinese population and proposed an optimization plan for the population distribution using GIS analysis. The main findings were as follows. (1) From 2010 to 2015, the distribution of population density in China presented a pattern of high in the southeast and low in the northwest based on the county-level administrative regions. The population still showed a tendency to migrate to the southeast of the country based on the “Hu Huanyong Line”. (2) There was a great difference in the land use efficiency in terms of population and economic production in China. The economic concentration in China was higher than the population concentration. In the areas where population and economic production were aggregated, GDP per capita and land use efficiency were higher. (3) Based on the land use efficiency in terms of population and economic production, the optimized urbanization plan of “1+4+11” for China’s urbanization was put forward, namely, one national-level aggregated area of population and economic production, 4 regional-level aggregated areas of population and economic production, and 11 local regionally aggregated areas of population and economic production. This optimization plan for urbanization represents an attempt to explore the direction of China’s urbanization, and it can be used to optimize the spatial development pattern and provide scientific guidance for the new urbanization plan.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Crop classification; SAR; Optical; time series; Sentinel-1; Sentinel-2; random forest; machine learning
Online: 3 August 2018 (12:01:50 CEST)
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A timely inventory of agricultural areas and crop types is an essential requirement for ensuring global food security. Satellite remote sensing has proven to be an increasingly more reliable tool to identify crop types. With the Copernicus program and its Sentinel satellites, a growing source of satellite remote sensing data is publicly available at no charge. Here we use joint Sentinel-1 radar and Sentinel-2 optical imagery to create a crop map for Belgium. To ensure homogenous radar and optical input across the country, Sentinel-1 12-day backscatter composites were created after incidence angle normalization, and Sentinel-2 NDVI images were smoothed to yield dekadal cloud-free composites. An optimized random forest classifier predicted the 8 crop types with a maximum accuracy of 82% and a kappa coefficient of 0.77. We found that a combination of radar and optical imagery always outperformed a classification based on single-sensor inputs, and that classification performance increased throughout the season until July, when differences between crop types are largest. Furthermore we showed that the concept of classification confidence derived from the random forest classifier provided insight in the reliability of the predicted class for each pixel, clearly showing that parcel borders have a lower classification confidence. We concluded that the synergistic use of radar and optical data for crop classification led to richer information increasing classification accuracies compared to optical-only classification. Further work should focus on object-level classification and crop monitoring to exploit the rich potential of combined radar and optical observations.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; LULC Products, systematic review, Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia
Online: 23 July 2018 (15:33:55 CEST)
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A large variety of remote sensing-based land use/land cover (LULC) products are currently available on national and global scales. This literature review and in-situ validation study evaluates the suitability of these products for local scale applications in the complex terrain of the Ethiopian mountains. For the review, 146 research papers were analyzed. Most studies (73%) have been published since 2013 and are based on individually computed maps. Not a single study relied on readily available LULC products. Nine readily available LULC products with 20, 30, 300, 500 and 1,000 m spatial resolution have been identified at national and global scales. To complement and extend this body of research, the recent (since 2013) LULC products were validated using 185 ground truth points collected in the Bale Mountains National Park between 1,500 and 4,385 m a.s.l. The results indicate a rather poor overall accuracy (<50%).
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; urban cycling; geo-game; spatial analysis; frictions; LBS; GPS
Online: 16 July 2018 (14:56:12 CEST)
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Urban cycling is a sustainable transport mode that cities currently try to expand. However, cities still do not take advantage of geospatial technologies to understand cycling mobility based on the behavioural patterns and difficulties faced by cyclists. This study analyses a geospatial dataset crowdsourced by urban cyclists using an experimental geo-game. About 20 participants per city recorded bicycle trips during one week and, by aggregating them, we found not only the cyclists’ preferred streets but also the frictions faced during cycling. We successfully identified 284 places potentially having frictions: 71 in Münster, Germany; 70 in Castelló, Spain; and 143 in Valletta, Malta. At such places, Participants not only recorded bicycle trips but also segments at lower speeds indicating a deviation from an ideal cycling scenario. We described the potential frictions preventing from bicycle commuting based on the distance to bicycle paths, surrounding infrastructure, and location in the urban area.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Image Fusion, Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Wetlands, Object-Based Classification, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Online: 13 July 2018 (17:11:07 CEST)
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Wetlands benefits can be summarized but are not limited to their ability to store floodwaters and improve water quality, providing habitats for wildlife and supporting biodiversity, as well as aesthetic values. Over the past few decades, remote sensing and geographical information technologies has proven to be a useful and frequent applications in monitoring and mapping wetlands. Combining both optical and microwave satellite data can give significant information about the biophysical characteristics of wetlands and wetlands` vegetation. Also, fusing data from different sensors, such as radar and optical remote sensing data, can increase the wetland classification accuracy. In this paper we investigate the ability of fusion two fine spatial resolution satellite data, Sentinel-2 and the Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite, Sentinel-1, for mapping wetlands. As a study area in this paper, Balikdami wetland located in the Anatolian part of Turkey has been selected. Both Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images require pre-processing before their use. After the pre-processing, several vegetation indices calculated from the Sentinel-2 bands were included in the data set. Furthermore, an object-based classification was performed. For the accuracy assessment of the obtained results, number of random points were added over the study area. In addition, the results were compared with data from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle collected on the same data of the overpass of the Sentinel-2, and three days before the overpass of Sentinel-1 satellite. The accuracy assessment showed that the results significant and satisfying in the wetland classification using both multispectral and microwave data. The statistical results of the fusion of the optical and radar data showed high wetland mapping accuracy, with an overall classification accuracy of approximately 90% in the object-based classification. Compared with the high resolution UAV data, the classification results give promising results for mapping and monitoring not just wetlands, but also the sub-classes of the study area. For future research, multi-temporal image use and terrain data collection are recommended.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Unmanned Aerial systems (UAS);, RGB high resolution imagery; forest canopy gaps; understorey; vertical species diversity; microhabitat-bearing trees; contrast split segmentation; drone
Online: 12 July 2018 (05:36:22 CEST)
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Forest canopy gaps are important for the ecosystem dynamics. Depending on tree species, small canopy openings might be also associated to intra-crown porosity and to space between crowns. Yet, little is known on the relationships between the fine-scaled pattern of canopy openings and biodiversity features. This research explored the possibility of i)- mapping forest canopy gaps from a very high resolution orthomosaic (10 cm), processed from a versatile imaging platform such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), ii)- to derive patch metrics that can be tested as covariates of variables of interest for forest biodiversity monitoring. This is attempted in a test area of 240 ha covered by temperate deciduous forest types in Central Italy and containing 50 forest inventory plots of about 530 m
2. Correlation and linear regression techniques were used to explore relationships between patch metrics and understorey (density, development and species diversity) or forest habitat biodiversity variables (density of micro-habitat bearing trees, vertical species profile, tree species diversity). The results revealed that small openings in the canopy cover (75% smaller than 7 m
2) can be faithfully extracted from UAV RGB imagery, using the red band and contrast split segmentation. Highest correlations were observed in the mixed forest (beech and turkey oak), while beech forest had the poorest ones and turkey oak forest displayed intermediate results. Moderate to strong linear relationships were found between gap metrics and understorey variables in mixed forest type, with adjusted R
2 from linear regression ranging from 0.52 to 0.87. Equally good results, in the same forest types, were observed for forest habitat biodiversity variables (0.52<adjusted R
2<0.79) with highest values found for density of trees with microhabitats and vertical species profile. In conclusion, this research highlights that UAV remote sensing can potentially provide covariate surfaces of variables of interest for forest biodiversity monitoring, conventionally collected in forest inventory plots. By integrating the two sources of data, these variables can be mapped over small forest areas with satisfactory levels of accuracy, at a much higher spatial resolution than would be possible by field-based forest inventory solely.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; space syntax; graph theory; city
Online: 9 July 2018 (13:35:05 CEST)
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We studied generalization of a method for extending configurational studies to variables that are not exclusively geographical, in order to allow investigation of generic relationships in the built environment. We observed a number of limitations of the classical approach of configurational studies and we considered how a complex analytical method could be implemented in the study of non-topological variables, such as land use, noise pollution and financial or property rents. In order to do this we established a system of relationships based on a labeled primary graph. Categorization of the labels of the links was performed on a generic variable, specifically, the predominant use of roads. The graph was then contracted using an optimization algorithm, which we describe. The algorithm allows the network to be reduced to a more streamlined system that can better analyze the relationships between the different categories. Application of the method showed that it is faster to identify weaknesses in urban networks, and then take measures to resolve them. The case study concerns the pedestrianization of the Colosseum area in Rome.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; flood; disaster prevention; emergency response; decision making, Google earth engine
Online: 4 July 2018 (15:33:44 CEST)
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This paper reports the efforts made and experiences gained in developing the Flood Prevention and Emergency Response System (FPERS) powered by Google Earth Engine, with focus on its applications at the three stages of floods. At the post-flood stage, FPERS integrates various remote sensing imageries, including Formosat-2 optical imagery, to detect and monitor barrier lakes, synthetic aperture radar imagery to derive an inundation map, and high-spatial-resolution photographs taken by unmanned aerial vehicles to evaluate damage to river channels and structures. At the pre-flood stage, a huge amount of geospatial data are integrated in FPERS and are categorized as typhoon forecast and archive, disaster prevention and warning, disaster events and analysis, or basic data and layers. At the during-flood stage, three strategies are implemented to facilitate the access of the real-time data: presenting the key information, making a sound recommendation, and supporting the decision-making. The example of Typhoon Soudelor in August of 2015 is used to demonstrate how FPERS was employed to support the work of flood prevention and emergency response from 2013 to 2016. The capability of switching among different topographic models and the flexibility of managing and searching data through a geospatial database are also explained, and suggestions are made for future works.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Digital Surface Model, Digital Terrain Model, Steep edge detection
Online: 2 July 2018 (16:42:05 CEST)
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In this paper we will present a simplified approach for extracting the ground level – a digital terrain model (DTM) – from the surface provided in a digital surface model (DSM). Most existing algorithms try to find the ground values in a digital surface model. Our approach works the opposite direction by detecting probable above ground areas. The main advantage of our approach is the possibility to use it with incomplete DSMs containing much no data values which can be e.g. occlusions in the calculated DSM. A smoothing or filling of such original derived DSMs will destroy much information which is very useful for deriving a ground surface from the DSM. Since the presented approach needs steep edges to detect potential high objects it will fail on smoothed and filled DSMs. After presenting the algorithm it will be applied to a test area in Salzburg and compared to a terrain model freely available from the Austrian government.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; gis; bim; ifc; citygml; integration; interoperability; geometry
Online: 29 June 2018 (15:15:57 CEST)
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It is widely acknowledged that the integration of BIM and GIS data is a crucial step forward for future 3D city modelling, but most of the research conducted so far has covered only the semantic aspects of GIS-BIM integration. We present here the results of the GeoBIM project, in which we tackled three integration problems focussing instead on aspects involving geometry processing: (i) the automated processing of complex architectural IFC models, (ii) the integration of existing GIS subsoil data in BIM, and (iii) the georeferencing of BIM models for their use in GIS software. All the problems have been studied using real world models and existing datasets made and used by practitioners in the Netherlands. For each problem, we expose in detail the issues we faced, our proposed solutions, and our recommendations for a more successful integration.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Antiquities; Monuments; Cultural Routes; Greece; Kynouria; GIS; Websites; Story maps.
Online: 27 June 2018 (16:00:03 CEST)
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On the occasion of Kynouria and in order to achieve the protection and projection of antiquities, a web-based model is proposed for highlighting individual monuments and archaeological sites, having in mind the historical and archaeological evidence of the region, the topography, the demographic profile and the tourist infrastructure, and combining them with the development programs for cultural routes. Therefore, creating suitable databases and mapping the monuments in the area are key prerequisites of the process, as they contribute to an objective assessment of the current situation and then to make rational decisions. In this frame, modern technology provides some important planning tools (GIS, GPS, and OMS) which allow recording and mapping of data, viewing the relationships between them in the area where they appear and managing their projection. The complete study of Kynouria’s archaeological routes contains the implementation of a website using free or open-source software, which should include all the necessary procedures and the historical and archaeological information material (text, maps, and photographs).
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; geoinformation modeling; settlement territory; approximation; digital terrain models; TIN-models; water level; flood process
Online: 19 June 2018 (09:54:31 CEST)
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Object. Flooding in Ukraine is a common natural phenomenon that repeats periodically and in some cases it becomes disastrous. In an average year floods on the rivers of Volyn region take place from one to three times which extend beyond the limits of the floodplain. The floodplain of Styr river is located in the historical center of Lutsk city, that`s why issues of research and forecasting of floods are very important for a given city. Methodology. Using modern technologies of geodesy and remote sensing allows to quickly determine and predict the floodplain area of settlements. Based on the statistical data of the Volyn Regional Center for Hydrometeorology during the 7 year period 2011-2017 about water levels of the river Styr. We conducted mathematical modeling of fluctuations of water levels within the territory of Lutsk, based on creating a partial Fourier series for discrete values of middle-ten-day water levels values. The post hydrological measurements of Styr river water levels in the territory of Lutsk located on the Shevchenko Street comply with an altitude 172.87 meters. Based on the data of short-term flood forecasting in February and March, and relief data from the Department of Architecture and Urban Development of Volyn State Administration, we conducted visualization of the results using geographic information system QGIS. Results. The results of mathematical processing were the basis for geoinformation simulation of flooded areas using remote sensing data that are publicly available. Use of statistical and geospatial data in this article has great potential for further application in modeling the processes of natural and technogenic origin. Scientific novelty. The mathematical model of short-term forecasting of water levels during the flood period on the river Styr with implementation of geoinformation modeling of flooded areas using remote sensing data is proposed. Practical significance. The research results of water level changes on the Styr River and flood zones within the limits of Lutsk is proposed. The spring flood in February-March 2018, with the maximum water level 5.33 m, corresponds to an absolute mark of 178.20 m, which is forecasted in this article.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; land-use/land-cover; multi-decadal change analysis; irrigation ponds; textural features; supervised classification; multi-source data
Online: 18 June 2018 (16:40:31 CEST)
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A multi-decadal change analysis of the irrigation ponds in Taoyuan, Taiwan was conducted by using multi-source data including digitized ancient maps, declassified single-band CORONA satellite images, and multispectral SPOT images. Supervised LULC classifications were conducted using four textural features derived from the single-band CORONA images and spectral features derived from SPOT images. Post-classification analysis revealed that the number of irrigation ponds in the study area decreased during the post-World War II farmland consolidation period (1945 – 1965) and the subsequent industrialization period (1970 – 2000). However, efforts on restoration of irrigation ponds in recent years have resulted in gradual increases in the number (9%) and total area (12%) of irrigation ponds in the study area.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; minimum noise fraction (MNF) transformation; object-based image analysis (OBIA); APEX hyperspectral imagery; Random forest (RF) classifier; multiresolution segmentation (MRS); tree species classification
Online: 12 June 2018 (10:55:07 CEST)
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Tree species composition is an important key element for biodiversity and sustainable forest management, and hyperspectral data provide detailed spectral information, which can be used for tree species classification. There are two main challenges for using hyperspectral imagery: a) Hughes phenomena, meaning by increasing the number of bands in hyperspectral imagery, the number of required classification samples would increase exponentially, and b) in a more complex environment, such as riparian mixed forest, focusing on spectral variability per pixel may not be adequate for definability of tree species. Therefore, the focus of this study is to assess spectral-spatial dimensionality reduction of airborne hyperspectral imagery by using minim noise fraction (MNF) transformation, and object-based image analysis (OBIA). An airborne prism experiment (APEX) hyperspectral imagery was used. A study area was a riparian mixed forest located along the Salzach river, and six tree species including Picea abies, Populus (canadensis and balsamifera), Fraxinus excelsior, Alnus incana, and Salix alba were selected. A machine learning algorithm random forest (RF) was used to train and apply a prediction model for classification. Using a spectral dimensionality reduced APEX, a pixel-level classification was also done. According to a confusion matrix, the object-level classification of MNF-derived components achieved the overall accuracy of 85 %, and kappa coefficient of 0.805. The performance of classes according to producer’s accuracy varied between 80% for Fraxinus excelsior, Alnus incana, and Populus canadensis to 90% for Salix alba and Picea abies. Comparison the results to a pixel-level classification, showed a better performance of object-level classification (an overall accuracy of 63% and Kappa coefficient of 0.559 were achieved for pixel-level classification). The performance of classes using pixel-based classification varied 45 % for Alnus incana to 80% for Picea abies. In general, Spectral-spatial complexity reduction using MNF transformation and object-level classification yielded a statistically satisfactory results.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; land-use; satellite imagery; agriculture
Online: 28 May 2018 (05:20:28 CEST)
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The natural and man-made landscape settings in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province of Northern Pakistan have significantly changed in the last decade due to increasing demands of urbanized populace, migration, two major natural disasters, and climate change. The aim of this study is to analyze land possession, income and land-use diversification of KPK administered Charsadda district. Field data is collected through a sample survey. Furthermore, freely available Landsat 7 satellite images are used to classify land-use classes (e.g., vegetation, built-up) for two different years (e.g., 2005 and 2017) for cross-verification and comparison. The highest 45% of 80% land-owners occupy land-area between 1–10 hectares. Annually, the highest 57.5% of the total farmers / employed in-habitants of surveyed regions earn more than Rs. 100,000 or ~$970 from agriculture activities. About 41.9% land-area covered by agricultural-land is transformed into built-up area since 2007, which is attributed to the increasing demand for buildings and commercial markets. The highest diversification is reported in Naguman area of Charsadda district followed by Rajjar and Niami. Population growth and huge migration of displaced persons from neighboring tribal areas are likely to be few factors which contributed to such a drastic change in land-use pattern since 2007 to 2017. Urgent attention of the policy makers, agricultural experts and society is required to minimize land degradation and to thwart further agricultural-land loss.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; spatio-temporal pattern; land cover; mountainous city; Chongqing
Online: 10 May 2018 (14:59:19 CEST)
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The urban heat island (UHI) becomes more and more serious with the acceleration of urbanization. Many researchers have shown interest in studying the UHI by using remote sensing data. But these studies rarely examine the mountainous cities. The studies on UHI in mountainous cities often used empirical parameters to estimate the land surface temperature (LST), and lacked satellite-ground synchronous experiment to test the accuracy. This paper revised the parameters in mono-window algorithm used to retrieve the LST according to the characteristics of mountainous cities. This study examined the spatial and temporal patterns of the UHI intensity in Chongqing, a typical mountainous city, and its relationship with land cover from 2007 to 2011 based on the Landsat TM data and the improved method. The accuracy of the LST derivation increased by about 1°C compared to the traditional method. The high LST areas increased and extended from the downtown to suburban area each year, but the rate of change decreased. The UHI is dramatically impacted by the rivers. There is a good relationship between the urban sprawl and the UHI. The LST was reduced by about 1°C within a 300m distance from large urban fringe green spaces. The urban landscape parks had a strong effect relieving the UHI at a 100m distance. The LST was reduced by about 0.5°C. The study greatly improves the accuracy of LST derivation, and provides a reliable parameters for the UHI researched in mountainous city.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Quantitative Precipitation Estimates; Validation; PERSIANN-CCS; meteorological radar; Satellite Rainfall Estimates
Online: 9 May 2018 (15:37:29 CEST)
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QPEs (Quantitative Precipitation Estimates) obtained from remote sensing or ground-based radars could complement or even be an alternative to rain gauge readings. However, to be used in operational applications, a validation process has to be carried out, usually by comparing their estimates with those of a rain gauges network. In this paper, the accuracy of two QPEs are evaluated for three extreme precipitation events in the last decade in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. The first QPE is PERSIANN-CCS, a satellite-based QPE. The second is a meteorological radar with Doppler capabilities that works in the C band. Pixel-to-point comparisons are made between the values offered by the QPEs and those obtained by two networks of rain gauges. The results obtained indicate that both QPEs were well below the rain gauge values, especially in extreme rainfall time slots. There seems to be a weak linear association between the value of the discrepancies and the precipitation value of the QPEs. It does not seem that radar is more accurate than PERSIANN-CCS, despite its larger spatial resolution and its commonly higher effectiveness. The main conclusion is that neither PERSIANN-CCS nor radar, without empirical calibration, are acceptable QPEs for the real-time monitoring of meteorological extremes in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; map projections; coordinate systems; earth's 3D models; earth's 2D representation
Online: 2 May 2018 (13:29:41 CEST)
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This work presents datasets that can be used for getting a good understanding of an essential geoscience content knowledge that describe earth’s coordinate systems. This include coordinate system used for spherical/spheroidal earth with latitudes and longitudes and their subsequent transformations to 2d maps on a variety of media (paper as well as digital) using the process of map projections. The datasets include PDF documents that are embedded with 3d models, animations and mathematical equations. The dataset has separate PDF documents for geographic (for spherical earth) and projected (2d) coordinate systems. Additionally, the data set include individual 3d models that can be used in various digital systems (including apps) and the animations in mp4 format that can be watched on most of the modern digital devices.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; land cover change detection; adaptive contextual information; bi-temporal remote sensing images
Online: 29 April 2018 (10:52:26 CEST)
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Land cover change detection (LCCD) based on bi-temporal remote sensing images plays an important role in the inventory of land cover change. Due to the benefit of having spatial dependency properties within the image space while using remote sensing images for detecting land cover change, many contextual information based change detection methods have been proposed during past decades. However, there is still a space for improvement in accuracies and usability of LCCD. In this paper, a LCCD method based on adaptive contextual information is proposed. First, an adaptive region is constructed by gradually detecting the spectral similarity surrounding a central pixel. Second, the Euclidean distance between pairwise extended regions is calculated to measure the change magnitude between the pairwise central pixels of bi-temporal images. While the whole bi-temporal images are scanned pixel-by-pixel, the change magnitude image (CMI) can be generated. Then, the Otsu or a manual threshold is employed to acquire the binary change detection map (BCDM). The detection accuracies of the proposed approach are investigated by two land cover change cases with Landsat bi-temporal remote sensing images. In comparison to several widely used change detection methods, the proposed approach can achieve a land cover change inventory map with a competitive accuracy.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; crowdsourced data; relevance; semantics; geographic information retrieval; natural language processing
Online: 26 April 2018 (10:19:02 CEST)
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Crowdsourced Data (CSD) generated by citizens is becoming more popular as its potential utilisation in many applications is increasing due to its currency and availability. However, the quality of CSD, including its relevance, is often questioned as the data is not generated by professionals nor follows standard data collection procedures. The quality of CSD can be assessed according to a range of attributes including its relevance. Information relevance has been explored through using in Geographic Information Retrieval (GIR) techniques to identify relevant information. This research tested a relevance assessment approach for CSD by adapting relevance assessment techniques available in the GIR domain. The thematic and geographic relevance were assessed using the Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF), Vector Space Model (VSM) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. The thematic and geographic specificities of the queries were calculated as 0.44 and 0.67 respectively, which indicates the queries used were more geographically specific than thematically specific. The Spearman's rho value of 0.62 indicated that the final ranked relevance lists showed reasonable agreement with a manually classified list and confirmed the potential of the approach for CSD relevance assessment for other possible crowdsourced data analysis.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; map processing; retrospective landscape analysis; visual data mining, image retrieval, low-level image descriptors, color moments, t-distributed stochastic neighborhood embedding, USGS topographic maps, Sanborn fire insurance maps
Online: 17 April 2018 (09:23:37 CEST)
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Historical maps constitute unique sources of retrospective geographic information. Recently, several map archives containing map series covering large spatial and temporal extents have been systematically scanned and made available to the public. The geographic information contained in such data archives allows extending geospatial analysis retrospectively beyond the era of digital cartography. However, given the large data volumes of such archives and the low graphical quality of older map sheets, the processes to extract geographic information need to be automated to the highest degree possible. In order to understand the salient characteristics, data quality variation, and potential challenges in large-scale information extraction tasks, preparatory analytical steps are required to efficiently assess spatio-temporal coverage, approximate map content, and spatial accuracy of such georeferenced map archives across different cartographic scales. Such preparatory steps are often neglected or ignored in the map processing literature but represent highly critical phases that lay the foundation for any subsequent computational analysis and recognition. In this contribution we demonstrate how such preparatory analyses can be conducted using classical analytical and cartographic techniques as well as visual-analytical data mining tools originating from machine learning and data science, exemplified for the United States Geological Survey topographic map and Sanborn fire insurance map archives.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; airborne laser scanning; geospatial database; data retrieval; road median; attributes
Online: 11 April 2018 (04:27:42 CEST)
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Laser scanning systems make use of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to acquire accurately georeferenced sets of dense 3D point cloud data. The information acquired using these systems produces better knowledge about the terrain objects which are inherently 3D in nature. The LiDAR data acquired from mobile, airborne or terrestrial platforms provides several benefit over conventional sources of data acquisition in terms of accuracy, resolution and attributes. However, the large volume and scale of LiDAR data have inhibited the development of automated feature extraction algorithms due to the extensive computational cost involved in it. Moreover, the heterogeneously distributed point cloud, which represents objects with varying size, point density, holes and complicated structures pose a great challenge for data processing. Currently, geospatial database systems do not provide a robust solution for efficient storage and accessibility of raw data in a way that data processing could be applied based on optimal spatial extent. In this paper, we present Global LiDAR and Imagery Mobile Processing Spatial Environment (GLIMPSE) system that provides a framework for storage, management and integration of 3D LiDAR data acquired from multiple platforms. The system facilitates an efficient accessibility to the raw dataset, which is hierarchically represented in a geographically meaningful way. We utilise the GLIMPSE system to automatically extract road median from Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) point cloud. In the first part of this paper, we detail an approach to efficiently retrieve the point cloud data from the GLIMPSE system for a particular geographic area based on user requirements. In the second part, we present an algorithm to automatically extract road median from the retrieved LiDAR data. The developed road median extraction algorithm utilises the LiDAR elevation and intensity attributes to distinguish the median from the road surface. We successfully tested our algorithms on two road sections consisting of distinct road median types based on concrete and grass-hedge barriers. The use of GLIMPSE improved the efficiency of the road median extraction in terms of fast accessibility to ALS point cloud data for the required road sections. The developed system and its associated algorithms provide a comprehensive solution to the user's requirement for an efficient storage, integration, retrieval and processing of large volumes of LiDAR point cloud data. These findings and knowledge contribute to a more rapid, cost-effective and comprehensive approach to surveying road networks.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; flood mapping; urban flood potential; LIDAR; image segmentation; Digital Surface Model; Digital Elevation Model
Online: 8 April 2018 (10:02:20 CEST)
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Degradation of environment quality is currently the prime cause of the recent occurrence of natural disasters; it also contributes in the increase of the area that is prone to natural disasters. This research is aimed to map the potential of areas around Pesanggrahan river in DKI Jakarta by segmenting the Digital Elevation Model derived from LIDAR data. The objective of this segmentation is to find the watershed lines of the DEM image. Data processing in this research is using LIDAR data which take the ground surface data, which is overlaid with Jakarta river map and subsequently, the data is then segmented the image. The expected result of the research is the flood potential area information, especially along the Pesanggrahan river in South Jakarta.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; geospatial technologies; distance learning; resource allocation; AIOU
Online: 3 April 2018 (04:29:44 CEST)
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Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) is the largest distance learning institute of Pakistan and providing education to 1.4 million students. This is fairly a large setup across the country where students are geographically distributed. Currently the system works on a manual approach which is not efficient. Allocation of tutors and study centers to students plays a key role in distance learning for a better learning environment. Assigning tutors and study centers to distance learning students is a challenging task when there is huge geographical spread. The utilization of geospatial technologies in open and distance learning can fix allocation problems. This research analyzes the real data of twin cities Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The results show that the geospatial technologies can be used for efficient and proper resource utilization and allocation, which in turn can save the time and money. The overall idea fits into improved distance learning framework and related analytics.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Forest fire danger index; MODIS; MOD11; MOD09; MOD14
Online: 14 March 2018 (15:38:35 CET)
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Forest fire is a major ecological disaster, which has economic, social and environmental impacts on humans and also causes the loss of biodiversity. Forest officials issue the warnings to the public on the basis of fire danger index classes. There is no fire danger index for the country India due to the sparsely distributed meteorological stations. Previous studies suggest that Static Fire Danger Index (SFDI) as well as Dynamic Fire Danger Index (DFDI) have been derived from the satellite datasets. In this study, we have made an attempt to integrate both the Static and Dynamic fire danger indices and also used the Near Real Time (NRT) data sets that can be available for download through NASA FTP server after one hour of the satellite overpass. In this study, DFDI has been calculated from the MODIS Terra NRT Land Surface Temperature (MOD11_L2) and MODIS TERRA NRT surface reflectance MOD09. Finally, The Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) has been developed from the static and dynamic fire danger indices by the additive model and the overall accuracy was around 81.27%. Thus, the FFDI has been useful to predict the fire danger accurately and can be useful anywhere, where the meteorological stations are un-available.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; geoinformation modeling, settlement territory, approximation, digital terrain models, TIN-models, water level, flood process.
Online: 5 February 2018 (15:56:04 CET)
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Floods in Ukraine is a common natural phenomenon that repeats periodically and in some cases it becomes disastrous signs. In an average year in the rivers of Volyn passes from one to three floods with going beyond the limits of the floodplain. Floodplain of Styr river is located in the historical center of Lutsk city, that`s why issues of research and forecasting of floods are very important for a given city. Using modern technologies of geodesy and remote sensing allows to quickly determine and predict the floodplain area of settlements. The research results of water level changes on the Styr River and flood zones within the limits of Lutsk is proposed. The mathematical model of short-term forecasting of water level in flood period on the river Styr with implementation of geoinformation modeling of flooded areas using remote sensing data is proposed.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Metadata; Geo-referencing; CSW; ISO standards; hydrology
Online: 29 January 2018 (17:12:28 CET)
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1) Background: We analyzed the corpus of three geoscientific journals to investigate if there are enough locational references in research articles to apply a geographical search method, on the example of New Zealand. 2) Methods: Based on all available abstracts and all freely available papers of the New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, the New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, and the Journal of Hydrology, New Zealand, we searched title, abstracts and full texts for place name occurrences that match records from the official Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) gazetteer. We generated ISO standard compliant metadata records for each article including the spatial references and make them available in a public catalogue service. This catalogue can be queried for articles based on authors, titles, keywords, topics as well as by spatial reference. We visualize the results in a map to show which area the research articles are about. 3) Results: We outline the methodology and technical framework for the geo-referencing of the journal articles and the platform design for this knowledge inventory. The results indicate that the use of well-crafted abstracts for journal articles with carefully chosen place names of relevance for the article provides a guideline for geographically referencing unstructured information like journal articles and reports in order to make such resources discoverable through geographical queries. 4) Conclusion: This approach can actively support integrated holistic assessment of water resources and support decision making.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; open GIS; geospatial Web services; geospatial Web semantics; Web GIS; Node.js; Javascript
Online: 29 January 2018 (05:29:38 CET)
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Semantic Web technologies are being increasingly adopted by the geospatial community during last decade through the utilization of open standards for expressing and serving geospatial data. This was also dramatically assisted by an ever increasing access and usage of geographic mapping and location-based services via smart devices in people’s daily activities. In this paper we explore the developmental framework of a pure Javascript client-side GIS platform exclusively based on invocable geospatial Web services. We also extend Javascript utilization on the server side by deploying a node server acting as a bridge between open source WPS libraries and popular geoprocessing engines. The vehicle for such an exploration is a cross platform Web browser capable of interpreting Javascript commands to achieve interaction with geospatial providers. The tool is a generic Web interface providing capabilities of acquiring spatial datasets, composing layouts and applying geospatial processes. In an ideal form the end-user will have to identify those services, which satisfy a geo-related need and put them in the appropriate row. The final output may act as a potential collector of freely available geospatial web services. Its server-side components may exploit geospatial processing suppliers composing that way a light-weight fully transparent open Web GIS platform.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; UAV image; dual-channel; dynamic programming; seam-line; optical flow
Online: 15 January 2018 (18:04:46 CET)
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Dislocation is one of the major challenges in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) image stitching. In this paper, we propose a new dynamic programming for seamlessly stitching UAV images using optical flow. Our solution consists of two steps: Firstly, an image-matching algorithm is used to correct the images so that they are in the same coordinate system. Secondly, a new dynamic programming algorithm is develop based on the concept of a stereo dual-channel energy accumulation using optical flow. A new energy aggregation and traversal strategy is adopted in our solution, which can find a more optimal seam line for adjacent image stitching. Our algorithm overcomes the theoretical limitation of the classical Duplaquet algorithm. Experiments show that the algorithm can effectively solve the dislocation problem in UAV image stitching. Beyond that, our solution is also direction-independent, which has more adaptability and robustness for UAV images.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; wheat classification; random forest; spectral gradient difference; vegetation indices
Online: 10 January 2018 (09:13:02 CET)
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The early-season area estimation of the winter wheat crop as a strategic product is important for decision makers. Classification of multi-temporal images is an approach which is affected by many factors like appropriate training sample size, proper frequency and acquisition times, vegetation indices (VIs) type, temporal gradient of spectral bands and VIs, appropriate classifier and missed values because of cloudy conditions. This paper addresses the impact of appropriate frequency and acquisition times and VIs type along with the spectral and VI gradient on random forest (RF) classifier when missed values exist in multi-temporal images. To investigate the appropriate temporal resolution for image acquisition, the study area was selected on an overlapping area between two LDCM paths. In our developed method, the miss values of cloudy bands for each pixel are retrieved by the mean of k-nearest ordinary pixels. Then the multi-temporal image analysis is performed by considering different scenarios provided by decision makers in terms of desired crop types that should be extracted at early-season in the study areas. The classification results obtained by the RF decrease by 1.6% when temporally missed values retrieved by the proposed method, which is an acceptable result. Moreover, the experimental results demonstrated that if temporal resolution of Landsat 8 increased to one week the classification task can be conducted earlier with almost better results in terms of OA and kappa. The impact of incorporating VIs along with the temporal gradients of spectral bands and VIs as new features in RF demonstrated that the OA and Kappa are improved 3.1% and 6.6%, respectively. Furthermore, the obtained result showed that if only one image from seasonal changes of crops is available, the temporal gradient of VIs and spectral bands play the main role to discriminate remarkably wheat from barley. The experiments also demonstrated that if both wheat and barley merge to a single class the crop area can be estimated two months earlier with 97.1 and 93.5 in terms of OA and kappa, respectively.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; formalization; cognitive map; wayfinding; navigation
Online: 2 January 2018 (12:52:21 CET)
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This paper outlines the formal representation of the environment in which it is assumed that a wayfinding process has been occurred through a street network. Wayfinding is a process in which people navigate themselves from an origin to a destination by their common sense geospatial knowledge. Naïve Geography is a field of study that investigates the body of knowledge that people have about the surrounding geospatial world and it deals with common sense knowledge of space. The image schemas which are needed for wayfinding with boundary relations method have been extracted and represented formally with algebraic specifications. These specifications are mentioned in the syntax of a functional programming language, Haskell. It allows us to execute written algebraic specifications and provide conditions for rapid prototyping and formal checks on consistency. These formal specifications are implemented for modeling street network of a part of Tehran, Capital city of Iran.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; virtual geographic environment; virtual geographic experiment; virtual reality; VRGIS; heterogeneous distributed clients
Online: 30 December 2017 (14:43:41 CET)
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Due to their strong immersion and real-time interactivity, helmet-mounted VR devices are becoming increasingly popular. Based on these devices, an immersive virtual geographic environment (VGE) provides a promising method for research into crowd behavior in an emergency. However, the current cheaper helmet-mounted VR devices are not popular enough and will continue to coexist with PC-based systems for a long time. Therefore, a heterogeneous distributed virtual geographic environment (HDVGE) could be a feasible solution to solve the heterogeneous problems caused by various types of clients, and support implementation of virtual crowd evacuation experiments, with large numbers of concurrent participants. In this study, we developed an HDVGE framework and put forward a set of design principles to define the similarities between the real world and the VGE. We discussed the HDVGE architecture and proposed an abstract interaction layer, a protocol-based interaction algorithm and an adjusted dead reckoning algorithm to solve the heterogeneous distributed problems. We then implemented an HDVGE prototype system focusing on subway fire evacuation experiments. Two types of clients are considered in the system, PC and all-in-one VR. Finally, we evaluated the performances of the prototype system and the key algorithms. The results showed that in a low-latency LAN environment, the prototype system can smoothly support 90 concurrent users consisting of PC and all-in-one VR clients. HDVGE could serve as a new means of obtaining observational data about individual and group behavior in support of human geography research.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; best practice; crop mapping; crowdsourcing; drought risk assessment; exposure; flood risk assessment; geospatial data; spaceborne remote sensing; unsupervised classification; rule-based classification
Online: 17 December 2017 (08:26:29 CET)
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Cash crops are agricultural crops intended to be sold for profit as opposed to subsistence crops, meant to support the producer, or to support livestock. Since cash crops are intended for future sale, they translate into large financial value when considered on a wide geographical scale, so their production directly involves financial risk. At a national level, extreme weather events including destructive rain or hail, as well as drought, can have a significant impact on the overall economic balance. It is thus important to map such crops in order to set up insurance and mitigation strategies. Using locally generated data -such as municipality-level records of crop seeding- for mapping purposes implies facing a series of issues like data availability, quality, homogeneity etc. We thus opted for a different approach relying on global datasets. Global datasets ensure homogeneity and availability of data, although sometimes at the expense of precision and accuracy. A typical global approach makes use of spaceborne remote sensing, for which different land cover classification strategies are available in literature at different levels of cost and accuracy. We selected the optimal strategy in the perspective of a global processing chain. Thanks to a specifically developed strategy for fusing unsupervised classification results with environmental constraints and other geospatial inputs including ground-based data, we managed to obtain good classification results despite the constraints placed. The overall production process was composed using ``good-enough" algorithms at each step, ensuring that the precision, accuracy, and data-hunger of each algorithm was commensurate to the precision, accuracy, and amount of data available. This paper describes the tailored strategy developed on the occasion as a cooperation among different groups with diverse backgrounds, a strategy which is believed to be profitably reusable in other, similar contexts. The paper presents the problem, the constraints and the adopted solutions; it then summarizes the main findings including that efforts and costs can be saved on the side of Earth Observation data processing when additional ground-based data are available to support the mapping task.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Cloudburst; GIS; MIKE11; DEM; Hydrodynamic model
Online: 1 December 2017 (10:33:45 CET)
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Cloudburst is one of the most devastating and frequently occurring natural hazardous events in Indian Himalayan region. Localized deep cumulus convective clouds have a capability of giving enormous amount of rainfall over a limited horizontal area, within a short span of time. Whenever, such events occur, lead to flash floods causing landslides, house collapses, dislocation of traffic, and human casualties on a large scale. Therefore, it is necessary to predict the cloudburst inundation zones accurately to avoid damage associated with them. For this, high resolution Digital Elevation Model generated from CartoSat-1 (Stereo pair) were integrated in MIKE 11 Hydrodynamic 1D model to generate longitudinal profile of the study area and to find water level, peak discharge, flow velocity, flow width at different reaches along the Asi ganga and Bhagirathi river, to know the Cloudburst flood inundation scenario. On 3rd August 2012 one of the major Cloudburst event occurred in Asi Ganga Valley in Indian Himalayan region which was considered for simulation of hydrodynamic model. For a Cloudburst event, 100 mm/hr rainfall was considered for the simulation of the hydrodynamic model. It is observed that the discharge rise from 50 m3/s to 549.164 m3/s (an abrupt increase of about 10 times) within 1 hr at Sangamchetty in Asiganga river and at Joshiyara area rise from 600 m3/s to 3378.69 m3/s (an abrupt increase of about 5 times) within 4 hr in Bhagirathi river. Similarly the water level rises around 3 m and 6m in Asi Ganga and Bhagirathi rivers respectively. Flash Flood inundation areas due to Cloudburst on 3rd August 2012 were demarcated from the simulation results in GIS environment.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; spatial data infrastructure; sensor web; geographical information system; smart cities; knowledge based system; expert system; spatial technologies
Online: 27 November 2017 (07:49:48 CET)
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Spatio-temporal aspects of data lead to critical information. Sensors capture data at all scales continually so it is imperative that useful information be extracted ubiquitously and regularly. Location plays a vital part by helping understand relations between datasets. It is crucial to link developmental works with spatial attributes and current challenge is to create an open platform that manages real-time sensor data and provides critical spatial analytics atop expert domain knowledge provided in the system. That is a two-faced problem where the solution tackles not only data from multiple sources but also runs data management platform, a spatial data infrastructure(SDI) as backbone framework able to harness sensor web(SW). The paper proposes development of such a globally shared open spatial expert system(ES), SmaCiSENS, a first of a kind geo-enabled knowledge based(KB) ES for multiple fields, smarter cities to climate modeling. SmaCiSENS is integration of SW and SDI with domain KB on data and problems, ready to infer solutions. The paper describes an architecture for semantic enablement for SW, SDI; connect interfaces, functions of SDI and SW, and sensor data application program interfaces (APIs) to better manage climate modeling, geohazard, global changes, and other vital areas of attention and action.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; segmentation; multi-spectral camera; soil: tree; raster scanning; UAV application
Online: 22 November 2017 (05:37:02 CET)
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The increased availability of high resolution remote sensor data for precision agriculture 1 applications permits users to aquire deeper and more relevant knowledge about crops states that lead 2 inevitably to better decisions. The algorithm libraries being developed and evolved around these 3 applications rely on multi-spectral or hyper-spectral data acquired by using manned or unmanned 4 platforms. The current state of the art makes thorough use of vegetational indicies to guide the 5 operational management of agricultural land plots. One of the most challenging sub-problems is 6 to correctly identify and separate crop from soil. Thresholding techniques based on Normalized 7 Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) or other such similar metrics have the advantage of being simple, 8 easy to read transformations of the data packed with useful information. Obvious difficulties arise 9 when crop/tree and soil have similar spectral responses as in case of grass filled areas in vineyards. 10 In this case grass and canopy are close in terms of NDVI values and thresholding techniques will 11 generally fail. Radiometric approaches could be integrated or replaced by a geometric approach that 12 is based on terrain data like Digital Surface Models (DSMs). These models are one of the ouputs 13 of orthorectification engines usually present in data acquired by using unmanned platforms. In 14 this paper we present two approaches based on DSM that are able to segment crop/tree from soil 15 while over gradient terrain. The DSM data are processed through a two dimensional data slicing or 16 reduction technique. Each slice is separately processed as a one dimensional time series to derive the 17 terrain and tree structures separately, here interpreted as object probability densities. In particular 18 the first approach is a Cartesian grid rasterization (CARSCAN) of the terrain and the second is its 19 immediate generalisation or radial grid rasterization of the DSM model (FANSCAN). The FANSCAN 20 recovers information from the original image at greater frequencies on the Fourier plane. These 21 approaches enable the identification of crop/tree from soil in case of slopes or hilly terrain without 22 any constraint on the displacement / direction of plant/tree row. The proposed algorithm uses pure 23 DSM information even if it is possible to fuse its output with other classifiers.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Sentinel-1A; TanDEM-X science phase; wetlands mapping
Online: 1 November 2017 (04:37:20 CET)
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This research is related to the eco-hydrological problems of herbaceous wetland drying and biodiversity loss in the floodplain lakes of the Middle Basin of the Biebrza river (Poland). An experiment was set up, whose main goals were: (i) mapping the vegetation types and the temporarily or permanently flooded areas, and (ii) comparing the usefulness of C-band Sentinel-1A (S1A) and X-band TerraSAR-X/TanDEM-X (TSX/TDX) for mapping purposes. The S1A imagery was acquired on a regular basis using the dual polarization VV/VH and the Interferometric Wide Swath Mode. The TSX/TDX data were acquired in quad-pol, a fully polarimetric mode, during the Science Phase. The paper addresses the following aspects: i) wetland mapping with S1A multi-temporal series; ii) wetland mapping with fully polarimetric TSX/TDX data; iii) comparing the wetland mapping using dual polarization TSX/TDX subsets, i.e. HH-HV, HH-VV and VV-VH; iv) comparing wetland mapping using S1A and TSX/TDX data based on the same polarization (VV-VH); v) studying the suitability of the Shannon Entropy for wetland mapping; and vi) assessing the contribution of interferometric coherence for wetland classification. The experimental results show main limitations of the S1A dataset, while they highlight the good accuracy that can be achieved using the TSX/TDX data, especially those taken in fully polarimetric mode.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; tree counting, olive trees, Xylella fastidiosa, Puglia, Italy, algorithms, image processing
Online: 27 October 2017 (12:30:05 CEST)
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Olive trees have been of economic and cultural value since pre-Roman times, and continue to dominate landscapes and agriculture in many mediterranean regions. Recent mass losses of olive trees in Southern Italy due to an exotic plant pathogen highlight the need for methods that to monitor the olive trees in a landscape or region operationally. Here, we develop a method for counting olive trees from aerial photographs and test it in areas with a high diversity of olive tree ages, sizes, and shapes. This heterogeneity complicates tree counting as centennial trees often have crowns that are split into multiple segments, resembling multiple crowns, while nearby crowns often form a semi-closed canopy comprising multiple trees. Comparisons with reference counts in two 20 ha sites and over three different years indicate the automated counts tend to be reasonably accurate (median error 13%, n = 6), but heavily influenced by a few olive orchards with particularly high planting densities and a relatively closed canopy in which distinguishing individual trees is challenging. Overall, the algorithm estimated tree densities well (counting 82 to 109 trees/ha versus 87 to 104 trees/ha in the reference counts), indicating the method is suitable to track the number of olive trees over large areas.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; object-oriented technique; change detection; eCognition® software; landuse
Online: 29 September 2017 (12:51:40 CEST)
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This study compared two object-oriented land use change detection methods—detection after classification (DAC) and classification after detection (CAD) —based on a digital elevation model, slope data, and multi-temporal Landsat images (TM image for 2000 and ETM image for 2010). We noted that the overall accuracy of the DAC (86.42%) was much higher than that of the CAD (71.71%). However, a slight difference between the accuracies of the two methods exists for deciduous broadleaf forest, evergreen coniferous forest, mixed wood, upland, paddy, reserved land, and settlement. Owing to substantial spectrum differences, these land use types can be extracted using spectral indexes. The accuracy of DAC was much higher than that of CAD for industrial land, traffic land, green shrub, reservoir, lake, river, and channel, all of which share similar spectrums. The discrepancy was mainly because DAC can completely utilize various forms of information apart from spectrum information during a two-stage classification. In addition, the change-area boundary was not limited at first, but was adjustable in the process of classification. DAC can overcome smoothing effects to a great extent using multi-scale segmentations and multi-characters in detection. Although DAC yielded better results, it was more time-consuming (28 days) because it uses a two-stage classification approach. Conversely, CAD consumed less time (15 days). Thus, a hybrid of the two methods is recommended for application in land use change detection.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; farming-pasture ecotone; TM image; remote sensing; vegetation cover factor; scale conversion; land use; high resolution image
Online: 21 September 2017 (16:33:49 CEST)
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The key to simulating soil erosion is to calculate the vegetation cover (C) factor. Methods that apply remote sensing to calculate C factor at regional scale cannot directly use the C factor formula. That is because the C factor formula is obtained by experiment, and needs the coverage ratio data of croplands, woodlands and grasslands at standard plot scale. In this paper, we present a C factor conversion method from a standard plot to a km-sized grid based on large sample theory and multi-scale remote sensing. Results show that: 1) Compared with the existing C factor formula, our method is based on the coverage ratio of croplands, woodlands and grasslands on a km-sized grid, takes the C factor formula obtained from the standard plot experiment and applies it to regional scale. This method improves the applicability of the C factor formula, and can satisfy the need to simulate soil erosion in large areas. 2) The vegetation coverage obtained by remote sensing interpretation is significantly consistent (paired samples t-test, t = −0.03, df = 0.12, 2-tail significance p < 0.05) and significantly correlated with the measured vegetation coverage. 3) The C factor of the study area is smaller in the middle, southern and northern regions, and larger in the eastern and western regions. The main reason for that is the distribution of woodlands, the Hunshandake and Horqin sandy lands and the valleys affected by human activities. 4) The method presented in this paper is more meticulous than the C factor method based on the vegetation index, improves the applicability of the C factor formula, and can be used to simulate soil erosion on large scale and provide strong support for regional soil and water conservation planning.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; GIS; image classification; LiDAR; remote sensing; wetland indicator; global wetland inventory; wetland mapping
Online: 14 September 2017 (17:25:27 CEST)
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Wetlands are recognized as one of the world’s most valuable natural resources. With the increasing world population, human demands on wetland resources for agricultural expansion and urban development continue to increase. In addition, global climate change has pronounced impacts on wetland ecosystems through alterations in hydrological regimes. To better manage and conserve wetland resources, we need to know the distribution and extent of wetlands and monitor their dynamic changes. Wetland maps and inventories can provide crucial information for wetland conservation, restoration, and management. Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing technologies have proven to be useful for mapping and monitoring wetland resources. Recent advances in geospatial technologies have greatly increased the availability of remotely sensed imagery with better and finer spatial, temporal, and spectral resolution. This chapter presents an introduction to the uses of GIS and remote sensing technologies for wetland mapping and monitoring. A case study is presented to demonstrate the use of high-resolution light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data and aerial photographs for mapping prairie potholes and surface hydrologic flow pathways.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; machine learning; sequential maximum a posteriori; random forest; support vector machines; land use classification; textural information; contextual information
Online: 4 September 2017 (10:43:26 CEST)
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The aim of this study is to evaluate three different strategies to improve classification accuracy in a highly fragmented semiarid area. i) Using different classification algorithms: Maximum Likelihood, Random Forest, Support Vector Machines and Sequential Maximum a Posteriori, with parameter optimisation in the second and third cases; ii) using different feature sets: spectral features, spectral and textural features, and spectral, textural and terrain features; and iii) using different image-sets: winter, spring, summer, autumn, winter+summer, winter+ spring+summer; and a four seasons combination. A 3-way ANOVA is used to discern which of these approaches and their interactions significantly increases accuracy. Tukey-Kramer contrast using a heteroscedasticity-consistent estimation of the kappa covariances matrix was used to check for significant differences in accuracy. The experiment was carried out with Landsat TM, ETM, and OLI images corresponding to the period 2000-2015. A combination of four images was the best way to improve accuracy. Maximum Likelihood, Random Forest and Support Vector Machines do not significantly increase accuracy when textural information is added, but do so when terrain features are taken into account. On the other hand, Sequential Maximum a Posteriori increases accuracy when textural features are used, but reduces accuracy substantially when terrain features are included. Random Forest using the three feature subsets and Sequential Maximum a Posteriori with spectral and textural features had the largest kappa values, around 0.9.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Content-Based Remote Sensing Image Retrieval; Change Information Detection; Information Management; Remote Sensing Data Service
Online: 29 August 2017 (16:18:20 CEST)
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With the rapid development of satellite remote sensing technology, the volume of image datasets in many application areas is growing exponentially and the demand for Land-Cover and Land-Use change remote sensing data is growing rapidly. It is thus becoming hard to efficiently and intelligently retrieve the change information that users need from massive image databases. In this paper, content-based image retrieval is successfully applied to change detection and a content-based remote sensing image change information retrieval model is introduced. First, the construction of a new model framework for change information retrieval in a remote sensing database is described. Then, as the target content cannot be expressed by one kind of feature alone, a multiple-feature integrated retrieval model is proposed. Thirdly, an experimental prototype system that was set up to demonstrate the validity and practicability of the model is described. The proposed model is a new method of acquiring change detection information from remote sensing imagery and so can reduce the need for image pre-processing, deal with problems related toseasonal changes as well as other problems encountered in the field of change detection. Meanwhile, the new model has important implications for improving remote sensing image management and autonomous information retrieval.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; WebGIS; Landscape; heritage; personalized learning; the cloud; distance learning
Online: 25 August 2017 (18:39:41 CEST)
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The value of landscape, as part of collective heritage, can be acquired by GIS due to the multilayer approach of the spatial configuration. Proficiency in geospatial technologies in order to collect, process, analyze, interpret, visualize and communicate geographic information is being increased by undergraduate and graduate students, but in particular by those who are training to become geography teachers at secondary education. This training can be carried out through personalized learning and distance learning methodology. Personalized GIS education aims to integrate students and enhance their understanding of landscape. Some teaching experiences are shown whereby opportunities offered by WebGIS will be described, through quantitative tools and techniques that will allow this modality of learning and improve its effectiveness. Results of this research show that students, through geospatial technologies, learn landscape as a diversity of elements but also the complexity of physical and human factors involved. Several conclusions will be highlighted: i) the contribution of geospatial training to education for sustainable development; ii) spatial analysis as a mean of skills acquisition about measures for landscape conservation; iii) expanding and applying acquired knowledge to other geographic spaces and different landscapes.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; AW3D30; DEM; Runway Method; RWYM
Online: 24 August 2017 (15:51:17 CEST)
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The digital elevation model (DEM) is one of the key geospatial datasets used in many fields of engineering and science for countless applications. In this contribution, we assess the vertical accuracy of the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) World 3D-30m (AW3D30) DEM using the runway method (RWYM). The RWYM utilizes the longitudinal profiles of runways which are reliable and ubiquitous reference data. A reference dataset used in this project consists of 36 runways located at various points throughout the world. The same dataset was previously used to test the accuracy of WorldDEMTM. Our study indicates that AW3D30 has a remarkably high RMSE of 1.78 m (one σ). However, while analyzing the results, it has become apparent that it also contains a widespread elevation anomaly. We conclude that this anomaly is the result of uncompensated sensor noise and the data processing algorithm (downsampling of the higher resolution data). We believe that this issue should be communicated to the user community. Also, we would like to note that the traditional accuracy assessment of a DEM, e.g., statistical assessment of the elevation differences = model – reference, does not allow for identification of these type of anomalies in a DEM.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; digital elevation model; DEM; digital surface model; DSM; great barrier reef; gully erosion; multi-view stereo; point cloud; unmanned aerial vehicle
Online: 13 July 2017 (02:55:02 CEST)
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Structure from Motion with Multi-View Stereo photogrammetry (SfM) is increasingly utilised in geoscience investigations as a cost-effective method of acquiring high resolution (sub-meter) topographic data, but has not been thoroughly tested in gullied savanna systems. The aim of this study was to test the accuracy of topographic models derived from aerial (via an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, ‘UAV’) and ground-based (via a handheld digital camera, ‘Ground’) SfM in modelling a hillslope gully system in dry-tropical savanna, and to assess the strengths and limitations of the approach at different scales. A UAV survey covered an entire hillslope gully system (0.715 km2), whereas a Ground survey covered a single gully within the broader system (650 m2). SfM topographic models, including Digital Surface Models (DSM) and dense point clouds, were compared against RTK-GPS point data and a pre-existing airborne LiDAR Digital Elevation Model (DEM). Results indicate UAV SfM can deliver topographic models with a resolution and accuracy suitable to define gully systems at a hillslope scale (e.g., 0.1 m resolution with ~ 0.5 – 1.3 m elevation error), while ground-based SfM is more capable of quantifying gully morphology (e.g., 0.01 m resolution with ~ 0.1 m elevation error). Key strengths of SfM for these applications include: the production of high resolution 3D topographic models and ortho-photo mosaics, low survey instrument costs (< $AUD 3,000); and rapid survey time (4 and 2 hours for UAV and Ground survey respectively). Current limitations of SfM include: difficulties in reconstructing vegetated surfaces; uncertainty as to optimal survey and processing designs; and high computational demands. Overall, this study has demonstrated great potential for SfM to be used as a cost-effective tool to aid in the mapping, modelling and management of hillslope gully systems at different scales, in tropical savanna landscapes and elsewhere.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; multi-temporal; seasonal; vegetation; palaeo-river; Indus civilisation; archaeology
Online: 27 June 2017 (04:41:04 CEST)
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Remote sensing has considerable potential to contribute to the identification and reconstruction of lost hydrological systems and networks. Remote sensing-based reconstructions of palaeo-river networks have commonly employed single or limited time-span imagery, which limits their capacity to identify features in complex and varied landscape contexts. This paper presents a seasonal multi-temporal approach to the detection of palaeo-rivers over large areas based on long-term vegetation dynamics and spectral decomposition techniques. The use of multi-temporal data has allowed the overcoming of seasonal cultivation patterns and long-term visibility issues related to crop selection, large-scale irrigation and land use patterns. The application of this approach on the Sutlej-Yamuna interfluve (northwest India), a core area for the Bronze Age Indus Civilisation, has enabled the reconstruction of an unsuspectedly complex palaeo-river network comprising more than 8000 kms of palaeo-channels. It has also enabled the definition of the morphology of these relict courses, which provides insights into the environmental conditions in which they operated. These new data will contribute to a better understanding of the settlement distribution and environmental settings in which this, often considered riverine, civilisation operated.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; remote sensing; attenuation coefficient; ratio method; soil line; bottom reflectance; shallow substrate; satellite derived bathymetry; water column correction; bottom typing
Online: 6 June 2017 (06:33:27 CEST)
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All empirical water column correction methods have consistently been reported to require existing depth sounding data for the purpose of calibrating a simple depth retrieval model; they yield poor results over very bright or very dark bottoms. In contrast, we set out to (i) use only the relative radiance data in the image along with published data, and several new assumptions, (ii) in order to specify and operate the simplified radiative transfer equation (RTE), (iii) for the purpose of retrieving both the satellite derived bathymetry (SDB) and the water column corrected spectral reflectance over shallow seabeds. Sea truth regressions show that SDB depths retrieved by the method only need tide correction. Therefore it shall be demonstrated that, under such new assumptions, there is no need (i) for formal atmospheric correction, (ii) nor for conversion of relative radiance into calibrated reflectance , (iii) nor for existing depth sounding data, to specify the simplified RTE and produce both SDB and spectral water column corrected radiance ready for bottom typing. Moreover, the use of the panchromatic band for that purpose is introduced. Altogether, we named this process the Self-Calibrated Supervised Spectral Shallow-sea Modeler (4SM). This approach requires a trained practitioner, though, to produce its results within hours of downloading the raw image. The ideal raw image should be a “near-nadir” view, exhibit homogeneous atmosphere and water column, include some coverage of optically deep waters and bare land, and lend itself to quality removal of haze, atmospheric adjacency effect, and sun/sky glint.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; multi-spectral analysis; remote sensing images; sparse coding; generalized aggregation; scene recognition
Online: 30 May 2017 (08:54:08 CEST)
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Satellite scene classification is challenging because of the high variability inherent in satellite data. Although rapid progress in remote sensing techniques has been witnessed in recent years, the resolution of the available satellite images remains limited compared with the general images acquired using a common camera. On the other hand, a satellite image usually has a greater number of spectral bands than a general image, thereby permitting the multi-spectral analysis of different land materials and promoting low-resolution satellite scene recognition. This study advocates multi-spectral analysis and explores the middle-level statistics of spectral information for satellite scene representation instead of using spatial analysis. This approach is widely utilized in general image and natural scene classification and achieved promising recognition performance for different applications. The proposed multi-spectral analysis firstly learns the multi-spectral prototypes (codebook) for representing any pixel-wise spectral data, and then based on the learned codebook, a sparse coded spectral vector can be obtained with machine learning techniques. Furthermore, in order to combine the set of coded spectral vectors in a satellite scene image, we propose a hybrid aggregation (pooling) approach, instead of conventional averaging and max pooling, which includes the benefits of the two existing methods but avoids extremely noisy coded values. Experiments on three satellite datasets validated that the performance of our proposed approach is much more accurate than even the deep learning framework for spatial analysis.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; travel time predictability; multiple entropy; travel time series; vehicle trajectory data
Online: 28 March 2017 (17:22:03 CEST)
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With the great development of intelligent transportation systems (ITS), travel time prediction has attracted the attentions of many researchers and a large number of prediction methods have been developed. However, as an unavoidable topic, the predictability of travel time series is the basic premise for travel time prediction has received less attention than the methodology. Based on the analysis of the complexity of travel time series, this paper defines travel time predictability to express the probability of correct travel time prediction and proposes an entropy-based method to measure the upper bound of travel time predictability. Multiscale entropy is employed to quantify the complexity of travel time series, and the relationships between entropy and the upper bound of travel time predictability are presented. Empirical studies are made with vehicle trajectory data in an express road section. The effectiveness of time scales, tolerance, and series length to entropy and travel time predictability are analysis, and some valuable suggestions about the accuracy of travel time predictability are discussed. Finally, the comparisons between travel time predictability and actual prediction results from two prediction models, ARIMA and BPNN, are conducted. Experimental results demonstrate the validity and reliability of the proposed travel time predictability.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; mobile laser scanning; voxel; clustering; segmentation
Online: 23 March 2017 (08:48:22 CET)
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The segmentation of urban scene mobile laser scanning (MLS) data into meaningful street objects is a great challenge due to the scene complexity of street environments, especially in the vicinity of street objects such as poles and trees. This paper proposes a three-stage method for the segmentation of urban MLS data at the object level. The original unorganized point cloud is first voxelized, and all information needed is stored in the voxels. These voxels are then classified as ground and non-ground voxels. In the second stage, the whole scene is segmented into clusters by applying a density-based clustering method based on two key parameters: local density and minimum distance. In the third stage, a merging step and a re-assignment processing step are applied to address the over-segmentation problem and noise points, respectively. We tested the effectiveness of the proposed methods on two urban MLS datasets. The overall accuracies of the segmentation results for the two test sites are 98.3% and 97%, thereby validating the effectiveness of the proposed method.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; spatial-spectral feature; very high spatial resolution image; classification; Tobler’s First Law of Geography
Online: 17 March 2017 (05:06:12 CET)
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Aerial image classification has become popular and has attracted extensive research efforts in recent decades. The main challenge lies in its very high spatial resolution but relatively insufficient spectral information. To this end, spatial-spectral feature extraction is a popular strategy for classification. However, parameter determination for that feature extraction is usually time-consuming and depends excessively on experience. In this paper, an automatic spatial feature extraction approach based on image raster and segmental vector data cross-analysis is proposed for the classification of very high spatial resolution (VHSR) aerial imagery. First, multi-resolution segmentation is used to generate strongly homogeneous image objects and extract corresponding vectors. Then, to automatically explore the region of a ground target, two rules, which are derived from Tobler’s First Law of Geography (TFL) and a topological relationship of vector data, are integrated to constrain the extension of a region around a central object. Third, the shape and size of the extended region are described. A final classification map is achieved through a supervised classifier using shape, size, and spectral features. Experiments on three real aerial images of VHSR (0.1 to 0.32 m) are done to evaluate effectiveness and robustness of the proposed approach. Comparisons to state-of-the-art methods demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method in VHSR image classification.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Random forest classification; urban sprawl; spatial metrics; Renyi’s entropy; sustainability; land change modelling; remote sensing; urban growth model; Chennai
Online: 5 January 2017 (09:20:29 CET)
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Urban sprawl propelled by rapid population growth leads to the shrinkage of productive agricultural lands and pristine forests in the suburban areas and, in turn, substantially alters ecosystem services. Hence, the quantification of urban sprawl is crucial for effective urban planning, and environmental and ecosystem management. Like many megacities in fast growing developing countries, Chennai, the capital of Tamilnadu and one of the business hubs in India, has experienced extensive urban sprawl triggered by the doubling of total population over the past three decades. We employed the Random Forest (RF) classification on Landsat imageries from 1991, 2003, and 2016, and computed spatial metrics to quantify the extent of urban sprawl within a 10km suburban buffer of Chennai. The rate of urban sprawl was quantified using Renyi’s entropy, and the urban extent was predicted for 2027 using land-use and land-cover change modeling. A 70.35% increase in urban areas was observed for the suburban periphery of Chennai between 1991 and 2016. The Renyi’s entropy value for year 2016 was ≥ 0.9, exhibiting a two-fold rate of urban sprawl. The spatial metrics values indicate that the existing urban areas of Chennai became denser and the suburban agricultural, forests and barren lands were transformed into fragmented urban settlements. The forecasted urban growth for 2027 predicts a conversion of 13670.33ha (16.57 % of the total landscape) of existing forests and agricultural lands into urban areas with an associated increase in the entropy value of 1.7. Our findings are relevant for urban planning and environmental management in Chennai and provide quantitative measures for addressing the social-ecological consequences of urban sprawl and the protection of ecosystem services.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; image recognition bases location; indoor positioning; RGB-D images; LiDAR; DataBase; mobile computing; image retrieval
Online: 15 December 2016 (07:17:35 CET)
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This paper describes the first results of an Image Recognition Based Location (IRBL) for mobile application focusing on the procedure to generate a Database of range images (RGB-D). In an indoor environment, to estimate the camera position and orientation, a prior spatial knowledge of the surrounding is needed. In order to achieve this objective a complete 3D survey of two different environment (Bangbae metro station of Seoul and E.T.R.I. building in Daejeon – Republic of Korea) was performed using LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) instrument and the obtained scans were processed in order to obtain a spatial model of the environments. From this, two databases of reference images were generated using a specific software realized by the Geomatics group of Politecnico di Torino (ScanToRGBDImage). This tool allow to generate synthetically different RGB-D images) centered in the each scan position in the environment. Later, the external parameters (X, Y, Z, ω, φ, κ) and the range information extracted from the DB images retrieved, are used as reference information for pose estimation of a set of acquired mobile pictures in the IRBL procedure. In this paper the survey operations, the approach for generating the RGB-D images and the IRB strategy are reported. Finally the analysis of the results and the validation test are described.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; Downwelling surface longwave radiation (DSLR); dust aerosol; aerosol optical depth (AOD); MODIS
Online: 12 December 2016 (14:58:20 CET)
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The variation of aerosols, especially dust aerosol, in time and space plays an important role in climate forcing studies. Aerosols can effectively reduce land surface longwave emission and re-emit energy at a colder temperature, making estimation of downwelling surface longwave radiation (DSLR) with satellite data difficult. Using the latest atmospheric radiative transfer code (MODTRAN 5.0), we simulate the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) and DSLR under different land surface and atmospheric profile conditions. The results show that dust aerosol has an obvious “warming” effect to longwave radiation compared with other aerosols, that aerosol longwave radiative forcing (ALRF) increased with increasing aerosol optical depth (AOD), and that the atmospheric water vapor content (WVC) is critical to the understanding of ALRF. A method is proposed to improve the accuracy of DSLR estimation from satellite data for the skies under heavy dust aerosols. The AOD and atmospheric WVC under cloud-free conditions with a relatively simple satellite-based radiation model that yields the high accurate DSLR under heavy dust aerosol are used explicitly as model input to reduce the effects of dust aerosol on the estimation of DSLR. Validations of the proposed model with satellites data and field measurements show that it estimates the DSLR accurately under heavy dust aerosol skies. The root mean square errors (RMSEs) are 20.4 W/M2 and 24.2 W/M2 for Terra and Aqua satellites, respectively, at the Yingke site, and the biases are 2.7 W/M2 and 9.6 W/M2, respectively. For the Arvaikheer site, the RMSEs are 23.2 W/M2 and 19.8 W/M2 for Terra and Aqua, respectively, and the biases are 7.8 W/M2 and 10.5 W/M2, respectively. The proposed method is especially applicable to acquire relatively high accurate DSLR under heavy dust aerosol using MODIS data with available WVC and AOD data.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; multi-task learning; feature fusion; sparse representation; low-rank representation; scene classification
Online: 7 November 2016 (05:25:11 CET)
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Scene classification plays an important role in the intelligent processing of high-resolution satellite (HRS) remotely sensed image. In HRS image classification, multiple features, e.g. shape, color, and texture features, are employed to represent scenes from different perspectives. Accordingly, effective integration of multiple features always results in better performance compared to methods based on a single feature in the interpretation of HRS image. In this paper, we introduce a multi-task joint sparse and low-rank representation model to combine the strength of multiple features for HRS image interpretation. Specifically, a multi-task learning formulation is applied to simultaneously consider sparse and low-rank structure across multiple tasks. The proposed model is optimized as a non-smooth convex optimization problem using an accelerated proximal gradient method. Experiments on two public scene classification datasets demonstrate that the proposed method achieves remarkable performance and improves upon the state-of-art methods in respective applications.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; land-use/land-cover (LULC); uncertainty; bootstrap resampling; chi-square threshold; class probability vector (CPV); entropy
Online: 26 August 2016 (11:56:26 CEST)
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Supervised land-use/land-cover (LULC) classifications are typically conducted using class assignment rules derived from a set of multiclass training samples. Consequently, classification accuracy varies with the training data set and is thus associated with uncertainty. In this study, we propose a bootstrap resampling and reclassification approach that can be applied for assessing not only the uncertainty in classification results of the bootstrap-training data sets, but also the classification uncertainty of individual pixels in the study area. Two measures of pixel-specific classification uncertainty, namely the maximum class probability and Shannon entropy, were derived from the class probability vector of individual pixels and used for the identification of unclassified pixels. Unclassified pixels that are identified using the traditional chi-square threshold technique represent outliers of individual LULC classes, but they are not necessarily associated with higher classification uncertainty. By contrast, unclassified pixels identified using the equal-likelihood technique are associated with higher classification uncertainty and they mostly occur on or near the borders of different land-cover.
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Earth Sciences, Geoinformatics; UAV remote sensing; power line inspection; dense matching; virtual photography; automatic detection of obstacles in power line corridor
Online: 5 August 2016 (08:07:23 CEST)
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When the distance between an obstacle and a power line is less than the discharge distance, a discharge arc can be generated, resulting in interruption of power supplies. Therefore, regular safety inspections are necessary to ensure safe operations of power grids. Tall vegetation and buildings are the key factors threatening the safe operation of extra high voltage transmission lines within a power line corridor. Manual or LiDAR based-inspections are time consuming and expensive. To make safety inspections more efficient and flexible, a low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle remote-sensing platform equipped with optical digital camera was used to inspect power line corridors. We propose a semi-patch matching algorithm based on epipolar constraints using both correlation coefficient and the shape of its curve to extract three dimensional (3D) point clouds for a power line corridor. Virtual photography was used to transform the power line direction from approximately parallel to the epipolar line to approximately perpendicular to epipolar line to improve power line measurement accuracy. The distance between the power lines and the 3D point cloud is taken as a criterion for locating obstacles within the power line corridor automatically. Experimental results show that our proposed method is a reliable, cost effective and applicable way for practical power line inspection, and can locate obstacles within the power line corridor with measurement accuracies better than ±0.5 m.