scholarly journals In-Season Mapping of Irrigated Crops Using Landsat 8 and Sentinel-1 Time Series

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valérie Demarez ◽  
Florian Helen ◽  
Claire Marais-Sicre ◽  
Frédéric Baup

Numerous studies have reported the use of multi-spectral and multi-temporal remote sensing images to map irrigated crops. Such maps are useful for water management. The recent availability of optical and radar image time series such as the Sentinel data offers new opportunities to map land cover with high spatial and temporal resolutions. Early identification of irrigated crops is of major importance for irrigation scheduling, but the cloud coverage might significantly reduce the number of available optical images, making crop identification difficult. SAR image time series such as those provided by Sentinel-1 offer the possibility of improving early crop mapping. This paper studies the impact of the Sentinel-1 images when used jointly with optical imagery (Landsat8) and a digital elevation model of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). The study site is located in a temperate zone (southwest France) with irrigated maize crops. The classifier used is the Random Forest. The combined use of the different data (radar, optical, and SRTM) improves the early classifications of the irrigated crops (k = 0.89) compared to classifications obtained using each type of data separately (k = 0.84). The use of the DEM is significant for the early stages but becomes useless once crops have reached their full development. In conclusion, compared to a “full optical” approach, the “combined” method is more robust over time as radar images permit cloudy conditions to be overcome.

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (233) ◽  
pp. 579-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
LINGHONG KE ◽  
XIAOLI DING ◽  
LEI ZHANG ◽  
JUN HU ◽  
C. K. SHUM ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTGlacier change has been recognized as an important climate variable due to its sensitive response to climate change. Although there are a large number of glaciers distributed over the southeastern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, the region is poorly represented in glacier databases due to seasonal snow cover and frequent cloud cover. Here, we present an improved glacier inventory for this region by combining Landsat observations acquired over 2011–13 (Landsat 8/OLI and Landsat TM/ETM+), coherence images from Advanced Land Observing Satellite Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar images and the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) DEM. We present a semi-automated scheme for integrating observations from multi-temporal Landsat scenes to mitigate cloud obscuration. Further, the clean-ice observations, together with coherence information, slope constraints, vegetation cover and water classification information extracted from the Landsat scenes, are integrated to determine the debris-covered glacier area. After manual editing, we derive a new glacier inventory containing 6892 glaciers >0.02 km2, covering a total area of 6566 ± 197 km2. This new glacier inventory indicates gross overestimation in glacier area (over 30%) in previously published glacier inventories, and reveals various spatial characteristics of glaciers in the region. Our inventory can be used as a baseline dataset for future studies including glacier change assessment.


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

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


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1876 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katsuto Shimizu ◽  
Tetsuji Ota ◽  
Nobuya Mizoue ◽  
Hideki Saito

Developing accurate methods for estimating forest structures is essential for efficient forest management. The high spatial and temporal resolution data acquired by CubeSat satellites have desirable characteristics for mapping large-scale forest structural attributes. However, most studies have used a median composite or single image for analyses. The multi-temporal use of CubeSat data may improve prediction accuracy. This study evaluates the capabilities of PlanetScope CubeSat data to estimate canopy height derived from airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) by comparing estimates using Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 data. Random forest (RF) models using a single composite, multi-seasonal composites, and time-series data were investigated at different spatial resolutions of 3, 10, 20, and 30 m. The highest prediction accuracy was obtained by the PlanetScope multi-seasonal composites at 3 m (relative root mean squared error: 51.3%) and Sentinel-2 multi-seasonal composites at the other spatial resolutions (40.5%, 35.2%, and 34.2% for 10, 20, and 30 m, respectively). The results show that RF models using multi-seasonal composites are 1.4% more accurate than those using harmonic metrics from time-series data in the median. PlanetScope is recommended for canopy height mapping at finer spatial resolutions. However, the unique characteristics of PlanetScope data in a spatial and temporal context should be further investigated for operational forest monitoring.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abderrahim Nemmaoui ◽  
Manuel A. Aguilar ◽  
Fernando J. Aguilar ◽  
Antonio Novelli ◽  
Andrés García Lorca

A workflow headed up to identify crops growing under plastic-covered greenhouses (PCG) and based on multi-temporal and multi-sensor satellite data is developed in this article. This workflow is made up of four steps: (i) data pre-processing, (ii) PCG segmentation, (iii) binary pre-classification between greenhouses and non-greenhouses, and (iv) classification of horticultural crops under greenhouses regarding two agronomic seasons (autumn and spring). The segmentation stage was carried out by applying a multi-resolution segmentation algorithm on the pre-processed WorldView-2 data. The free access AssesSeg command line tool was used to determine the more suitable multi-resolution algorithm parameters. Two decision tree models mainly based on the Plastic Greenhouse Index were developed to perform greenhouse/non-greenhouse binary classification from Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2A time series, attaining overall accuracies of 92.65% and 93.97%, respectively. With regards to the classification of crops under PCG, pepper in autumn, and melon and watermelon in spring provided the best results (Fβ around 84% and 95%, respectively). Data from the Sentinel-2A time series showed slightly better accuracies than those from Landsat 8.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 1619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhou Ya’nan ◽  
Luo Jiancheng ◽  
Feng Li ◽  
Zhou Xiaocheng

Spatial features retrieved from satellite data play an important role for improving crop classification. In this study, we proposed a deep-learning-based time-series analysis method to extract and organize spatial features to improve parcel-based crop classification using high-resolution optical images and multi-temporal synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. Central to this method is the use of multiple deep convolutional networks (DCNs) to extract spatial features and to use the long short-term memory (LSTM) network to organize spatial features. First, a precise farmland parcel map was delineated from optical images. Second, hundreds of spatial features were retrieved using multiple DCNs from preprocessed SAR images and overlaid onto the parcel map to construct multivariate time-series of crop growth for parcels. Third, LSTM-based network structures for organizing these time-series features were constructed to produce a final parcel-based classification map. The method was applied to a dataset of high-resolution ZY-3 optical images and multi-temporal Sentinel-1A SAR data to classify crop types in the Hunan Province of China. The classification results, showing an improvement of greater than 5.0% in overall accuracy relative to methods without spatial features, demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method in extracting and organizing spatial features for improving parcel-based crop classification.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1934 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana F. Militino ◽  
Manuel Montesino-SanMartin ◽  
Unai Pérez-Goya ◽  
M. Dolores Ugarte

The combination of freely accessible satellite imagery from multiple programs improves the spatio-temporal coverage of remote sensing data, but it exhibits barriers regarding the variety of web services, file formats, and data standards. Ris an open-source software environment with state-of-the-art statistical packages for the analysis of optical imagery. However, it lacks the tools for providing unified access to multi-program archives to customize and process the time series of images. This manuscript introduces RGISTools, a new software that solves these issues, and provides a working example on water mapping, which is a socially and environmentally relevant research field. The case study uses a digital elevation model and a rarely assessed combination of Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 imagery to determine the water level of a reservoir in Northern Spain. The case study demonstrates how to acquire and process time series of surface reflectance data in an efficient manner. Our method achieves reasonably accurate results, with a root mean squared error of 0.90 m. Future improvements of the package involve the expansion of the workflow to cover the processing of radar images. This should counteract the limitation of the cloud coverage with multi-spectral images.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haifeng Tian ◽  
Ni Huang ◽  
Zheng Niu ◽  
Yuchu Qin ◽  
Jie Pei ◽  
...  

Timely and accurate mapping of winter crop planting areas in China is important for food security assessment at a national level. Time-series of vegetation indices, such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), are widely used for crop mapping, as they can characterize the growth cycle of crops. However, with the moderate spatial resolution optical imagery acquired by Landsat and Sentinel-2, it is difficult to obtain complete time-series curves for vegetation indices due to the influence of the revisit cycle of the satellite and weather conditions. Therefore, in this study, we propose a method for compositing the multi-temporal NDVI, in order to map winter crop planting areas with the Landsat-7 and -8 and Sentinel-2 optical images. The algorithm composites the multi-temporal NDVI into three key values, according to two time-windows—a period of low NDVI values and a period of high NDVI values—for the winter crops. First, we identify the two time-windows, according to the time-series of the NDVI obtained from daily Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer observations. Second, the 30 m spatial resolution multi-temporal NDVI curve, derived from the Landsat-7 and -8 and Sentinel-2 optical images, is composited by selecting the maximal value in the high NDVI value period, and the minimal and median values in the low NDVI value period, using an algorithm of the Google Earth Engine. Third, a decision tree classification method is utilized to perform the winter crop classification at a pixel level. The results indicate that this method is effective for the large-scale mapping of winter crops. In the study area, the area of winter crops in 2018 was determined to be 207,641 km2, with an overall accuracy of 96.22% and a kappa coefficient of 0.93. The method proposed in this paper is expected to contribute to the rapid and accurate mapping of winter crops in large-scale applications and analyses.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 8-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. I. Ginzburg ◽  
E. V. Krek ◽  
A. G. Kostianoy ◽  
D. M. Soloviev

In this paper, on the basis of an analysis of the successive satellite optical images (MODISAqua, TIRS Landsat-8, AVHRR NOAA-18) and radar images (SAR-C Sentinel-1A, SAR-C Radarsat-2) on June 8–11, 2015, the effect of the mesoscale vortex movement (anticyclone with diameter of 35 km and associated cyclone) on the transport of oil spots in the northern part of the Gdansk Bay was demonstrated for the first time. The velocities of this transport are estimated; the observed picture of the movement of the spots is compared with their transfer according to the Seatrack Web model. The largest (about 20 cm/s) drift velocity corresponded to the spot that appeared near the periphery of the anticyclonic vortex (the region of maximum velocities), the smallest one was at the spot near the center of the vortex. At a wind speed of not more than 5 m/s on June 10 and an assumed orbital velocity of the anticyclone of the order of 20 cm/s, the contribution of the vortex motion to the total transport of the spots under the influence of wind and vortex should be decisive. The observed drift of the spots did not correspond to the forecast of their movement by the Seatrack Web numerical model, which did not take into account the vortex dynamics of the waters.


Author(s):  
C. Hessel ◽  
R. Grompone von Gioi ◽  
J. M. Morel ◽  
G. Facciolo ◽  
P. Arias ◽  
...  

Abstract. We propose a method for the relative radiometric normalization of long, multi-sensor image time series. This allows to increase the revisit time under comparable conditions. Although the relative radiometric normalization is a well-studied problem in the remote sensing community, the availability of an increasing number of images gives rise to new problems. For example, given long series spanning several years, finding features that are maintained through the whole period of time becomes arduous. Instead, we propose in this paper to use automatically detected reference images chosen by maximization of a quality metric. For each image, two affine correction models are robustly estimated using random sample consensus, using the two closest reference images; the final correction is obtained by linear interpolation. For each pair of source and reference images, pseudo-invariant features are obtained using a similarity measure invariant to radiometric changes. A final tone-mapping step outputs the images in the standard 8-bits range. This method is illustrated by the fusion of time series of Sentinel-2 at correction levels 1C, 2A, and Landsat-8 images. By using only the atmospherically corrected Sentinel-2 L2A images as anchors, the full output series inherits this atmospheric correction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaqi Tian ◽  
Xiaolin Zhu ◽  
Jin Wu ◽  
Miaogen Shen ◽  
Jin Chen

Numerous investigations of urbanization effects on vegetation spring phenology using satellite images have reached a consensus that vegetation spring phenology in urban areas occurs earlier than in surrounding rural areas. Nevertheless, the magnitude of this rural–urban difference is quite different among these studies, especially for studies over the same areas, which implies large uncertainties. One possible reason is that the satellite images used in these studies have different spatial resolutions from 30 m to 1 km. In this study, we investigated the impact of spatial resolution on the rural–urban difference of vegetation spring phenology using satellite images at different spatial resolutions. To be exact, we first generated a dense 10 m NDVI time series through harmonizing Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 images by data fusion method, and then resampled the 10 m time series to coarser resolutions from 30 m to 8 km to simulate images at different resolutions. Afterwards, to quantify urbanization effects, vegetation spring phenology at each resolution was extracted by a widely used tool, TIMESAT. Last, we calculated the difference between rural and urban areas using an urban extent map derived from NPP VIIRS nighttime light data. Our results reveal: (1) vegetation spring phenology in urban areas happen earlier than rural areas no matter which spatial resolution from 10 m to 8 km is used, (2) the rural–urban difference in vegetation spring phenology is amplified with spatial resolution, i.e., coarse satellite images overestimate the urbanization effects on vegetation spring phenology, and (3) the underlying reason of this overestimation is that the majority of urban pixels in coarser images have higher diversity in terms of spring phenology dates, which leads to spring phenology detected from coarser NDVI time series earlier than the actual dates. This study indicates that spatial resolution is an important factor that affects the accuracy of the assessment of urbanization effects on vegetation spring phenology. For future studies, we suggest that satellite images with a fine spatial resolution are more appropriate to explore urbanization effects on vegetation spring phenology if vegetation species in urban areas is very diverse.


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