scholarly journals A Semi-Automated Object-Based Gully Networks Detection Using Different Machine Learning Models: A Case Study of Bowen Catchment, Queensland, Australia

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (22) ◽  
pp. 4893 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hejar Shahabi ◽  
Ben Jarihani ◽  
Sepideh Tavakkoli Piralilou ◽  
David Chittleborough ◽  
Mohammadtaghi Avand ◽  
...  

Gully erosion is a dominant source of sediment and particulates to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) World Heritage area. We selected the Bowen catchment, a tributary of the Burdekin Basin, as our area of study; the region is associated with a high density of gully networks. We aimed to use a semi-automated object-based gully networks detection process using a combination of multi-source and multi-scale remote sensing and ground-based data. An advanced approach was employed by integrating geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) with current machine learning (ML) models. These included artificial neural networks (ANN), support vector machines (SVM), and random forests (RF), and an ensemble ML model of stacking to deal with the spatial scaling problem in gully networks detection. Spectral indices such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and topographic conditioning factors, such as elevation, slope, aspect, topographic wetness index (TWI), slope length (SL), and curvature, were generated from Sentinel 2A images and the ALOS 12-m digital elevation model (DEM), respectively. For image segmentation, the ESP2 tool was used to obtain three optimal scale factors. On using object pureness index (OPI), object matching index (OMI), and object fitness index (OFI), the accuracy of each scale in image segmentation was evaluated. The scale parameter of 45 with OFI of 0.94, which is a combination of OPI and OMI indices, proved to be the optimal scale parameter for image segmentation. Furthermore, segmented objects based on scale 45 were overlaid with 70% and 30% of a prepared gully inventory map to select the ML models’ training and testing objects, respectively. The quantitative accuracy assessment methods of Precision, Recall, and an F1 measure were used to evaluate the model’s performance. Integration of GEOBIA with the stacking model using a scale of 45 resulted in the highest accuracy in detection of gully networks with an F1 measure value of 0.89. Here, we conclude that the adoption of optimal scale object definition in the GEOBIA and application of the ensemble stacking of ML models resulted in higher accuracy in the detection of gully networks.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (17) ◽  
pp. 2757 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thimmaiah Gudiyangada Nachappa ◽  
Omid Ghorbanzadeh ◽  
Khalil Gholamnia ◽  
Thomas Blaschke

We live in a sphere that has unpredictable and multifaceted landscapes that make the risk arising from several incidences that are omnipresent. Floods and landslides are widespread and recurring hazards occurring at an alarming rate in recent years. The importance of this study is to produce multi-hazard exposure maps for flooding and landslides for the federal State of Salzburg, Austria, using the selected machine learning (ML) approach of support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF). Multi-hazard exposure maps were established on thirteen influencing factors for flood and landslides such as elevation, slope, aspect, topographic wetness index (TWI), stream power index (SPI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), geology, lithology, rainfall, land cover, distance to roads, distance to faults, and distance to drainage. We classified the inventory data for flood and landslide into training and validation with the widely used splitting ratio, where 70% of the locations are used for training, and 30% are used for validation. The accuracy assessment of the exposure maps was derived through ROC (receiver operating curve) and R-Index (relative density). RF yielded better results for both flood and landslide exposure with 0.87 for flood and 0.90 for landslides compared to 0.87 for flood and 0.89 for landslides using SVM. However, the multi-hazard exposure map for the State of Salzburg derived through RF and SVM provides the planners and managers to plan better for risk regions affected by both floods and landslides.


Author(s):  
T. Kavzoglu ◽  
M. Yildiz Erdemir ◽  
H. Tonbul

Within the last two decades, object-based image analysis (OBIA) considering objects (i.e. groups of pixels) instead of pixels has gained popularity and attracted increasing interest. The most important stage of the OBIA is image segmentation that groups spectrally similar adjacent pixels considering not only the spectral features but also spatial and textural features. Although there are several parameters (scale, shape, compactness and band weights) to be set by the analyst, scale parameter stands out the most important parameter in segmentation process. Estimating optimal scale parameter is crucially important to increase the classification accuracy that depends on image resolution, image object size and characteristics of the study area. In this study, two scale-selection strategies were implemented in the image segmentation process using pan-sharped Qickbird-2 image. The first strategy estimates optimal scale parameters for the eight sub-regions. For this purpose, the local variance/rate of change (LV-RoC) graphs produced by the ESP-2 tool were analysed to determine fine, moderate and coarse scales for each region. In the second strategy, the image was segmented using the three candidate scale values (fine, moderate, coarse) determined from the LV-RoC graph calculated for whole image. The nearest neighbour classifier was applied in all segmentation experiments and equal number of pixels was randomly selected to calculate accuracy metrics (overall accuracy and kappa coefficient). Comparison of region-based and image-based segmentation was carried out on the classified images and found that region-based multi-scale OBIA produced significantly more accurate results than image-based single-scale OBIA. The difference in classification accuracy reached to 10% in terms of overall accuracy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 3854 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Chen ◽  
Yunzhi Chen ◽  
Paraskevas Tsangaratos ◽  
Ioanna Ilia ◽  
Xiaojing Wang

The main objective of the present study is to introduce a novel predictive model that combines evolutionary algorithms and machine learning (ML) models, so as to construct a landslide susceptibility map. Genetic algorithms (GA) are used as a feature selection method, whereas the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method is used to optimize the structural parameters of two ML models, support vector machines (SVM) and artificial neural network (ANN). A well-defined spatial database, which included 335 landslides and twelve landslide-related variables (elevation, slope angle, slope aspect, curvature, plan curvature, profile curvature, topographic wetness index, stream power index, distance to faults, distance to river, lithology, and hydrological cover) are considered for the analysis, in the Achaia Regional Unit located in Northern Peloponnese, Greece. The outcome of the study illustrates that both ML models have an excellent performance, with the SVM model achieving the highest learning accuracy (0.977 area under the receiver operating characteristic curve value (AUC)), followed by the ANN model (0.969). However, the ANN model shows the highest prediction accuracy (0.800 AUC), followed by the SVM (0.750 AUC) model. Overall, the proposed ML models highlights the necessity of feature selection and tuning procedures via evolutionary optimization algorithms and that such approaches could be successfully used for landslide susceptibility mapping as an alternative investigation tool.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 696
Author(s):  
Wei Chen ◽  
Zenghui Sun ◽  
Xia Zhao ◽  
Xinxiang Lei ◽  
Ataollah Shirzadi ◽  
...  

The purpose of this study is to compare nine models, composed of certainty factors (CFs), weights of evidence (WoE), evidential belief function (EBF) and two machine learning models, namely random forest (RF) and support vector machine (SVM). In the first step, fifteen landslide conditioning factors were selected to prepare thematic maps, including slope aspect, slope angle, elevation, stream power index (SPI), sediment transport index (STI), topographic wetness index (TWI), plan curvature, profile curvature, land use, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil, lithology, rainfall, distance to rivers and distance to roads. In the second step, 152 landslides were randomly divided into two groups at a ratio of 70/30 as the training and validation datasets. In the third step, the weights of the CF, WoE and EBF models for conditioning factor were calculated separately, and the weights were used to generate the landslide susceptibility maps. The weights of each bivariate model were substituted into the RF and SVM models, respectively, and six integrated models and landslide susceptibility maps were obtained. In the fourth step, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and related parameters were used for verification and comparison, and then the success rate curve and the prediction rate curves were used for re-analysis. The comprehensive results showed that the hybrid model is superior to the bivariate model, and all nine models have excellent performance. The WoE–RF model has the highest predictive ability (AUC_T: 0.9993, AUC_P: 0.8968). The landslide susceptibility maps produced in this study can be used to manage landslide hazard and risk in Linyou County and other similar areas.


Author(s):  
T. Kavzoglu ◽  
M. Yildiz Erdemir ◽  
H. Tonbul

Within the last two decades, object-based image analysis (OBIA) considering objects (i.e. groups of pixels) instead of pixels has gained popularity and attracted increasing interest. The most important stage of the OBIA is image segmentation that groups spectrally similar adjacent pixels considering not only the spectral features but also spatial and textural features. Although there are several parameters (scale, shape, compactness and band weights) to be set by the analyst, scale parameter stands out the most important parameter in segmentation process. Estimating optimal scale parameter is crucially important to increase the classification accuracy that depends on image resolution, image object size and characteristics of the study area. In this study, two scale-selection strategies were implemented in the image segmentation process using pan-sharped Qickbird-2 image. The first strategy estimates optimal scale parameters for the eight sub-regions. For this purpose, the local variance/rate of change (LV-RoC) graphs produced by the ESP-2 tool were analysed to determine fine, moderate and coarse scales for each region. In the second strategy, the image was segmented using the three candidate scale values (fine, moderate, coarse) determined from the LV-RoC graph calculated for whole image. The nearest neighbour classifier was applied in all segmentation experiments and equal number of pixels was randomly selected to calculate accuracy metrics (overall accuracy and kappa coefficient). Comparison of region-based and image-based segmentation was carried out on the classified images and found that region-based multi-scale OBIA produced significantly more accurate results than image-based single-scale OBIA. The difference in classification accuracy reached to 10% in terms of overall accuracy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 682
Author(s):  
Ali Azedou ◽  
Said Lahssini ◽  
Abdellatif Khattabi ◽  
Modeste Meliho ◽  
Nabil Rifai

Erosion is the main threat to sustainable water and soil management in Morocco. Located in the Souss-Massa watershed, the rural municipality of El Faid remains an area where gully erosion is a major factor involved in soil degradation and flooding. The aim of this study is to predict the spatial distribution of gully erosion at the scale of this municipality and to evaluate the predictive capacity of three prediction methods (frequency ratio (FR), logistic regression (LR), and random forest (RF)) for the characterization of gullying vulnerability. Twelve predisposing factors underlying gully formation were considered and mapped (elevation, slope, aspect, plane curvature, slope length (SL), stream power index (SPI), composite topographic index (CTI), land use, topographic wetness index (TWI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), lithology, and vegetation cover (C factor). Furthermore, 894 gullies were digitized using high-resolution imagery. Seventy-five percent of the gullies were randomly selected and used as a training dataset, whereas the remaining 25% were used for validation purposes. The prediction accuracy was evaluated using area under the curve (AUC). Results showed that the factor that most contributed to the prevalence of gullying was topographic (slope, CTI, LS). Furthermore, the fitted models revealed that the RF model had a better prediction quality, with the best AUC (91.49%). The produced maps represent a valuable tool for sustainable management, land conservation, and protecting human lives against natural hazards (floods).


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 315
Author(s):  
Hilal Ahmad ◽  
Chen Ningsheng ◽  
Mahfuzur Rahman ◽  
Md Monirul Islam ◽  
Hamid Reza Pourghasemi ◽  
...  

The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project passes through the Karakoram Highway in northern Pakistan, which is one of the most hazardous regions of the world. The most common hazards in this region are landslides and debris flows, which result in loss of life and severe infrastructure damage every year. This study assessed geohazards (landslides and debris flows) and developed susceptibility maps by considering four standalone machine-learning and statistical approaches, namely, Logistic Regression (LR), Shannon Entropy (SE), Weights-of-Evidence (WoE), and Frequency Ratio (FR) models. To this end, geohazard inventories were prepared using remote sensing techniques with field observations and historical hazard datasets. The spatial relationship of thirteen conditioning factors, namely, slope (degree), distance to faults, geology, elevation, distance to rivers, slope aspect, distance to road, annual mean rainfall, normalized difference vegetation index, profile curvature, stream power index, topographic wetness index, and land cover, with hazard distribution was analyzed. The results showed that faults, slope angles, elevation, lithology, land cover, and mean annual rainfall play a key role in controlling the spatial distribution of geohazards in the study area. The final susceptibility maps were validated against ground truth points and by plotting Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUROC) curves. According to the AUROC curves, the success rates of the LR, WoE, FR, and SE models were 85.30%, 76.00, 74.60%, and 71.40%, and their prediction rates were 83.10%, 75.00%, 73.50%, and 70.10%, respectively; these values show higher performance of LR over the other three models. Furthermore, 11.19%, 9.24%, 10.18%, 39.14%, and 30.25% of the areas corresponded to classes of very-high, high, moderate, low, and very-low susceptibility, respectively. The developed geohazard susceptibility map can be used by relevant government officials for the smooth implementation of the CPEC project at the regional scale.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 3925
Author(s):  
Ivan Pilaš ◽  
Mateo Gašparović ◽  
Alan Novkinić ◽  
Damir Klobučar

The presented study demonstrates a bi-sensor approach suitable for rapid and precise up-to-date mapping of forest canopy gaps for the larger spatial extent. The approach makes use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) red, green and blue (RGB) images on smaller areas for highly precise forest canopy mask creation. Sentinel-2 was used as a scaling platform for transferring information from the UAV to a wider spatial extent. Various approaches to an improvement in the predictive performance were examined: (I) the highest R2 of the single satellite index was 0.57, (II) the highest R2 using multiple features obtained from the single-date, S-2 image was 0.624, and (III) the highest R2 on the multitemporal set of S-2 images was 0.697. Satellite indices such as Atmospherically Resistant Vegetation Index (ARVI), Infrared Percentage Vegetation Index (IPVI), Normalized Difference Index (NDI45), Pigment-Specific Simple Ratio Index (PSSRa), Modified Chlorophyll Absorption Ratio Index (MCARI), Color Index (CI), Redness Index (RI), and Normalized Difference Turbidity Index (NDTI) were the dominant predictors in most of the Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. The more complex ML algorithms such as the Support Vector Machines (SVM), Random Forest (RF), Stochastic Gradient Boosting (GBM), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Catboost that provided the best performance on the training set exhibited weaker generalization capabilities. Therefore, a simpler and more robust Elastic Net (ENET) algorithm was chosen for the final map creation.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (16) ◽  
pp. 3451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Usman Salihu Lay ◽  
Biswajeet Pradhan ◽  
Zainuddin Bin Md Yusoff ◽  
Ahmad Fikri Bin Abdallah ◽  
Jagannath Aryal ◽  
...  

Cameron Highland is a popular tourist hub in the mountainous area of Peninsular Malaysia. Most communities in this area suffer frequent incidence of debris flow, especially during monsoon seasons. Despite the loss of lives and properties recorded annually from debris flow, most studies in the region concentrate on landslides and flood susceptibilities. In this study, debris-flow susceptibility prediction was carried out using two data mining techniques; Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) and Support Vector Regression (SVR) models. The existing inventory of debris-flow events (640 points) were selected for training 70% (448) and validation 30% (192). Twelve conditioning factors namely; elevation, plan-curvature, slope angle, total curvature, slope aspect, Stream Transport Index (STI), profile curvature, roughness index, Stream Catchment Area (SCA), Stream Power Index (SPI), Topographic Wetness Index (TWI) and Topographic Position Index (TPI) were selected from Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR)-derived Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data. Multi-collinearity was checked using Information Factor, Cramer’s V, and Gini Index to identify the relative importance of conditioning factors. The susceptibility models were produced and categorized into five classes; not-susceptible, low, moderate, high and very-high classes. Models performances were evaluated using success and prediction rates where the area under the curve (AUC) showed a higher performance of MARS (93% and 83%) over SVR (76% and 72%). The result of this study will be important in contingency hazards and risks management plans to reduce the loss of lives and properties in the area.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document