Remote Sensing

20 pages, 4310 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of CLARA-A2 and ISCCP-H Cloud Cover Climate Data Records over Europe with ECA&D Ground-Based Measurements

by Vasileios Tzallas, Nikos Hatzianastassiou, Nikos Benas, Jan Fokke Meirink, Christos Matsoukas, Paul Stackhouse, Jr. and Ilias Vardavas

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 212; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020212 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 5440

Abstract

Clouds are of high importance for the climate system but they still remain one of its principal uncertainties. Remote sensing techniques applied to satellite observations have assisted tremendously in the creation of long-term and homogeneous data records; however, satellite data sets need to [...] Read more.

Clouds are of high importance for the climate system but they still remain one of its principal uncertainties. Remote sensing techniques applied to satellite observations have assisted tremendously in the creation of long-term and homogeneous data records; however, satellite data sets need to be validated and compared with other data records, especially ground measurements. In the present study, the spatiotemporal distribution and variability of Total Cloud Cover (TCC) from the Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF) Cloud, Albedo And Surface Radiation dataset from AVHRR data—edition 2 (CLARA-A2) and the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project H-series (ISCCP-H) is analyzed over Europe. The CLARA-A2 data record has been created using measurements of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) instrument onboard the polar orbiting NOAA and the EUMETSAT MetOp satellites, whereas the ISCCP-H data were produced by a combination of measurements from geostationary meteorological satellites and the AVHRR instrument on the polar orbiting satellites. An intercomparison of the two data records is performed over their common period, 1984 to 2012. In addition, a comparison of the two satellite data records is made against TCC observations at 22 meteorological stations in Europe, from the European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D). The results indicate generally larger ISCCP-H TCC with respect to the corresponding CLARA-A2 data, in particular in the Mediterranean. Compared to ECA&D data, both satellite datasets reveal a reasonable performance, with overall mean TCC biases of 2.1 and 5.2% for CLARA-A2 and ISCCP-H, respectively. This, along with the higher correlation coefficients between CLARA-A2 and ECA&D TCC, indicates the better performance of CLARA-A2 TCC data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Assessment of Quality and Usability of Climate Data Records)

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19 pages, 11556 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Novel Approach for the Detection of Standing Tree Stems from Plot-Level Terrestrial Laser Scanning Data

by Wuming Zhang, Peng Wan, Tiejun Wang, Shangshu Cai, Yiming Chen, Xiuliang Jin and Guangjian Yan

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 211; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020211 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 90 | Viewed by 9426

Abstract

Tree stem detection is a key step toward retrieving detailed stem attributes from terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data. Various point-based methods have been proposed for the stem point extraction at both individual tree and plot levels. The main limitation of the point-based methods [...] Read more.

Tree stem detection is a key step toward retrieving detailed stem attributes from terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data. Various point-based methods have been proposed for the stem point extraction at both individual tree and plot levels. The main limitation of the point-based methods is their high computing demand when dealing with plot-level TLS data. Although segment-based methods can reduce the computational burden and uncertainties of point cloud classification, its application is largely limited to urban scenes due to the complexity of the algorithm, as well as the conditions of natural forests. Here we propose a novel and simple segment-based method for efficient stem detection at the plot level, which is based on the curvature feature of the points and connected component segmentation. We tested our method using a public TLS dataset with six forest plots that were collected for the international TLS benchmarking project in Evo, Finland. Results showed that the mean accuracies of the stem point extraction were comparable to the state-of-art methods (>95%). The accuracies of the stem mappings were also comparable to the methods tested in the international TLS benchmarking project. Additionally, our method was applicable to a wide range of stem forms. In short, the proposed method is accurate and simple; it is a sensible solution for the stem detection of standing trees using TLS data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Frontiers in Spectral Imaging and 3D Technologies for Geospatial Solutions)

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24 pages, 37573 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A New Framework for Modelling and Monitoring the Conversion of Cultivated Land to Built-up Land Based on a Hierarchical Hidden Semi-Markov Model Using Satellite Image Time Series

by Yuan Yuan, Lei Lin, Jingbo Chen, Hichem Sahli, Yixiang Chen, Chengyi Wang and Bin Wu

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 210; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020210 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4710

Abstract

Large amounts of farmland loss caused by urban expansion has been a severe global environmental problem. Therefore, monitoring urban encroachment upon farmland is a global issue. In this study, we propose a novel framework for modelling and monitoring the conversion of cultivated land [...] Read more.

Large amounts of farmland loss caused by urban expansion has been a severe global environmental problem. Therefore, monitoring urban encroachment upon farmland is a global issue. In this study, we propose a novel framework for modelling and monitoring the conversion of cultivated land to built-up land using a satellite image time series (SITS). The land-cover change process is modelled by a two-level hierarchical hidden semi-Markov model, which is composed of two Markov chains with hierarchical relationships. The upper chain represents annual land-cover dynamics, and the lower chain encodes the vegetation phenological patterns of each land-cover type. This kind of architecture enables us to represent the multilevel semantic information of SITS at different time scales. Specifically, intra-annual series reflect phenological differences and inter-annual series reflect land-cover dynamics. In this way, we can take advantage of the temporal information contained in the entire time series as well as the prior knowledge of land cover conversion to identify where and when changes occur. As a case study, we applied the proposed method for mapping annual, long-term urban-induced farmland loss from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series in the Jing-Jin-Tang district, China from 2001 to 2010. The accuracy assessment showed that the proposed method was accurate for detecting conversions from cultivated land to built-up land, with the overall accuracy of 97.72% in the spatial domain and the temporal accuracy of 74.60%. The experimental results demonstrated the superiority of the proposed method in comparison with other state-of-the-art algorithms. In addition, the spatial-temporal patterns of urban expansion revealed in this study are consistent with the findings of previous studies, which also confirms the effectiveness of the proposed method. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Urban Remote Sensing)

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21 pages, 12122 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Algorithms for Doppler Spectral Density Data Quality Control and Merging for the Ka-Band Solid-State Transmitter Cloud Radar

by Liping Liu and Jiafeng Zheng

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 209; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020209 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 4992

Abstract

The Chinese Ka-band solid-state transmitter cloud radar (CR) can operate in three different work modes with different pulse widths and coherent integration and non-coherent integration numbers to meet the requirement for long-term cloud measurements. The CR was used to observe cloud and precipitation [...] Read more.

The Chinese Ka-band solid-state transmitter cloud radar (CR) can operate in three different work modes with different pulse widths and coherent integration and non-coherent integration numbers to meet the requirement for long-term cloud measurements. The CR was used to observe cloud and precipitation data in southern China in 2016. In order to resolve the data quality problems caused by coherent integration and pulse compression, which are used to detect weak cloud in the cloud radar, this study focuses on analyzing the consistencies of reflectivity spectra using the three modes and the influence of coherent integration and pulse compression, developing an algorithm for Doppler spectral density data quality control (QC) and merging based on multiple-mode observation data. After dealiasing Doppler velocity and artefact removal, the three types of Doppler spectral density data were merged. Then, Doppler moments such as reflectivity, radial velocity, and spectral width were recalculated from the merged reflectivity spectra. Performance of the merging algorithm was evaluated. Three conclusions were drawn. Firstly, four rounds of coherent integration with a pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of 8333 Hz underestimated the reflectivity spectra for Doppler velocities exceeding 2 m·s⁻¹, causing a large negative bias in the reflectivity and radial velocity when large drops were present. In contrast, two rounds of coherent integration affected the reflectivity spectra to a lesser extent. The reflectivity spectra were underestimated for low signal-to-noise ratios in the low-sensitivity mode. Secondly, pulse compression improved the radar sensitivity and air vertical speed observation, whereas the precipitation mode and coherent integration led to an underestimation of the number concentration of big raindrops and an overestimation of the number concentration of small drops. Thirdly, a comparison of the individual spectra with the merged reflectivity spectra showed that the Doppler moments filled in the gaps in the individual spectra during weak cloud periods, reduced the effects of coherent integration and pulse compression in liquid precipitation, mitigated the aliasing of Doppler velocity, and removed the artefacts, yielding a comprehensive and accurate depiction of most of the clouds and precipitation in the vertical column above the radar. The recalculated moments of the Doppler spectra had better quality than those merged from raw data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing of Clouds)

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22 pages, 6834 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Statistical Characteristics of Cyclonic Warm-Core Eddies and Anticyclonic Cold-Core Eddies in the North Pacific Based on Remote Sensing Data

by Wenjin Sun, Changming Dong, Wei Tan and Yijun He

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 208; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020208 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 53 | Viewed by 6847

Abstract

A (an) cyclonic (anticyclonic) eddy is usually associated with a cold (warm) core caused by the eddy-induced divergence (convergence) motion. However, there are also some cyclonic (anticyclonic) eddies with warm (cold) cores in the North Pacific, named cyclonic warm-core eddies (CWEs) and anticyclonic [...] Read more.

A (an) cyclonic (anticyclonic) eddy is usually associated with a cold (warm) core caused by the eddy-induced divergence (convergence) motion. However, there are also some cyclonic (anticyclonic) eddies with warm (cold) cores in the North Pacific, named cyclonic warm-core eddies (CWEs) and anticyclonic cold-core eddies (ACEs) in this study, respectively. Their spatio-temporal characteristics and regional dependence are analyzed using the multi-satellite merged remote sensing datasets. The CWEs are mainly concentrated in the northwestern and southeastern North Pacific. However, besides these two areas, the ACEs are also concentrated in the northeastern Pacific. The annual mean number decreases year by year for both CWEs and ACEs, and the decreasing rate of the CWEs is about two times as large as that of the ACEs. Moreover, the CWEs and ACEs also exhibit a significant seasonal variation, which are intense in summer and weak in winter. Based on the statistics of dynamic characteristics in seven subregions, the Kuroshio Extension region could be considered as the most active area for the CWEs and ACEs. Two possible mechanisms for CW-ACEs generation are discussed by analyzing two cases. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing of Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions)

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24 pages, 14388 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cropland Mapping Using Fusion of Multi-Sensor Data in a Complex Urban/Peri-Urban Area

by Eunice Nduati, Yuki Sofue, Akbar Matniyaz, Jong Geol Park, Wei Yang and Akihiko Kondoh

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 207; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020207 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 5670

Abstract

Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture (UPA) has recently come into sharp focus as a valuable source of food for urban populations. High population density and competing land use demands lend a spatiotemporally dynamic and heterogeneous nature to urban and peri-urban croplands. For the provision [...] Read more.

Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture (UPA) has recently come into sharp focus as a valuable source of food for urban populations. High population density and competing land use demands lend a spatiotemporally dynamic and heterogeneous nature to urban and peri-urban croplands. For the provision of information to stakeholders in agriculture and urban planning and management, it is necessary to characterize UPA by means of regular mapping. In this study, partially cloudy, intermittent moderate resolution Landsat images were acquired for an area adjacent to the Tokyo Metropolis, and their Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was computed. Daily MODIS 250 m NDVI and intermittent Landsat NDVI images were then fused, to generate a high temporal frequency synthetic NDVI data set. The identification and distinction of upland croplands from other classes (including paddy rice fields), within the year, was evaluated on the temporally dense synthetic NDVI image time-series, using Random Forest classification. An overall classification accuracy of 91.7% was achieved, with user’s and producer’s accuracies of 86.4% and 79.8%, respectively, for the cropland class. Cropping patterns were also estimated, and classification of peanut cultivation based on post-harvest practices was assessed. Image spatiotemporal fusion provides a means for frequent mapping and continuous monitoring of complex UPA in a dynamic landscape. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue High Resolution Image Time Series for Novel Agricultural Applications)

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16 pages, 4708 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimization of Sensitivity of GOES-16 ABI Sea Surface Temperature by Matching Satellite Observations with L4 Analysis

by Boris Petrenko, Alexander Ignatov, Yury Kihai and Matthew Pennybacker

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 206; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020206 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4786

Abstract

Monitoring of the diurnal warming cycle in sea surface temperature (SST) is one of the key tasks of the new generation geostationary sensors, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-16/17 Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), and the Himawari-8/9 Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI). However, such monitoring [...] Read more.

Monitoring of the diurnal warming cycle in sea surface temperature (SST) is one of the key tasks of the new generation geostationary sensors, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-16/17 Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), and the Himawari-8/9 Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI). However, such monitoring requires modifications of the conventional SST retrieval algorithms. In order to closely reproduce temporal and spatial variations in SST, the sensitivity of retrieved SST to SSTskin should be as close to 1 as possible. Regression algorithms trained by matching satellite observations with in situ SST from drifting and moored buoys do not meet this requirement. Since the geostationary sensors observe tropical regions over larger domains and under more favorable conditions than mid-to-high latitudes, the matchups are predominantly concentrated within a narrow range of in situ SSTs >2 85 K. As a result, the algorithms trained against in situ SST provide the sensitivity to SSTskin as low as ~0.7 on average. An alternative training method, employed in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Advanced Clear-Sky Processor for Oceans, matches nighttime satellite clear-sky observations with the analysis L4 SST, interpolated to the sensor’s pixels. The method takes advantage of the total number of clear-sky pixels being large even at high latitudes. The operational use of this training method for ABI and AHI has increased the mean sensitivity of the global regression SST to ~0.9 without increasing regional biases. As a further development towards improved SSTskin retrieval, the piecewise regression SST algorithm was developed, which provides optimal sensitivity in every SST pixel. The paper describes the global and the piecewise regression algorithms trained against analysis SST and illustrates their performance with SST retrievals from the GOES-16 ABI. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sea Surface Temperature Retrievals from Remote Sensing)

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18 pages, 8978 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Improvement and Validation of NASA/MODIS NRT Global Flood Mapping

by Li Lin, Liping Di, Junmei Tang, Eugene Yu, Chen Zhang, Md. Shahinoor Rahman, Ranjay Shrestha and Lingjun Kang

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 205; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020205 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 53 | Viewed by 6246

Abstract

The remote-sensing based Flood Crop Loss Assessment Service System (RF-CLASS) is a web service based system developed and managed by the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems (CSISS). The system uses Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-based flood data, which was implemented by [...] Read more.

The remote-sensing based Flood Crop Loss Assessment Service System (RF-CLASS) is a web service based system developed and managed by the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems (CSISS). The system uses Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-based flood data, which was implemented by the Dartmouth Flood Observatory (DFO), to provide an estimation of crop loss from floods. However, due to the spectral similarity between water and shadow, a noticeable amount of false classification of shadow can be found in the DFO flood products. Traditional methods can be utilized to remove cloud shadow and part of mountain shadow. This paper aims to develop an algorithm to filter out noise from permanent mountain shadow in the flood layer. The result indicates that mountain shadow was significantly removed by using the proposed approach. In addition, the gold standard test indicated a small number of actual water surfaces were misidentified by the proposed algorithm. Furthermore, experiments also suggest that increasing the spatial resolution of the slope helped reduce more noise in mountains. The proposed algorithm achieved acceptable overall accuracy (>80%) in all different filters and higher overall accuracies were observed when using lower slope filters. This research is one of the very first discussions on identifying false flood classification from terrain shadow by using the highly efficient method. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from Agro-Geoinformatics 2018)

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20 pages, 7591 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

A Self-Calibrated Non-Parametric Time Series Analysis Approach for Assessing Insect Defoliation of Broad-Leaved Deciduous Nothofagus pumilio Forests

by Roberto O. Chávez, Ronald Rocco, Álvaro G. Gutiérrez, Marcelo Dörner and Sergio A. Estay

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 204; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020204 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 27 | Viewed by 6120

Abstract

Folivorous insects cause some of the most ecologically and economically important disturbances in forests worldwide. For this reason, several approaches have been developed to exploit the temporal richness of available satellite time series data to detect and quantify insect forest defoliation. Current approaches [...] Read more.

Folivorous insects cause some of the most ecologically and economically important disturbances in forests worldwide. For this reason, several approaches have been developed to exploit the temporal richness of available satellite time series data to detect and quantify insect forest defoliation. Current approaches rely on parametric functions to describe the natural annual phenological cycle of the forest, from which anomalies are calculated and used to assess defoliation. Quantification of the natural variability of the annual phenological baseline is limited in parametric approaches, which is critical to evaluating whether an observed anomaly is “true” defoliation or only part of the natural forest variability. We present here a fully self-calibrated, non-parametric approach to reconstruct the annual phenological baseline along with its confidence intervals using the historical frequency of a vegetation index (VI) density, accounting for the natural forest phenological variability. This baseline is used to calculate per pixel (1) a VI anomaly per date and (2) an anomaly probability flag indicating its probability of being a “true” anomaly. Our method can be self-calibrated when applied to deciduous forests, where the winter VI values are used as the leafless reference to calculate the VI loss (%). We tested our approach with dense time series from the MODIS enhanced vegetation index (EVI) to detect and map a massive outbreak of the native Ormiscodes amphimone caterpillars which occurred in 2015–2016 in Chilean Patagonia. By applying the anomaly probability band, we filtered out all pixels with a probability <0.9 of being “true” defoliation. Our method enabled a robust spatiotemporal assessment of the O. amphimone outbreak, showing severe defoliation (60–80% and >80%) over an area of 15,387 ha of Nothofagus pumilio forests in only 40 days (322 ha/day in average) with a total of 17,850 ha by the end of the summer. Our approach is useful for the further study of the apparent increasing frequency of insect outbreaks due to warming trends in Patagonian forests; its generality means it can be applied in deciduous broad-leaved forests elsewhere. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dense Image Time Series Analysis for Ecosystem Monitoring)

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21 pages, 10241 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Validation of OMI HCHO Products Using MAX-DOAS observations from 2010 to 2016 in Xianghe, Beijing: Investigation of the Effects of Aerosols on Satellite Products

by Yapeng Wang, Zifeng Wang, Chao Yu, Songyan Zhu, Liangxiao Cheng, Ying Zhang and Liangfu Chen

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 203; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020203 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4411

Abstract

Formaldehyde (HCHO) is one of the most abundant hydrocarbons in the atmosphere. Its absorption features in the 320–360 nm range allow its concentration in the atmosphere to be retrieved from space. There are two versions of HCHO datasets derived from the Ozone Monitoring [...] Read more.

Formaldehyde (HCHO) is one of the most abundant hydrocarbons in the atmosphere. Its absorption features in the 320–360 nm range allow its concentration in the atmosphere to be retrieved from space. There are two versions of HCHO datasets derived from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI)—one provided by the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB) and one provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)—referred to as OMI-BIRA and OMI-NASA, respectively. We conducted daily comparisons of OMI-BIRA and multi-axis differential optical absorption spectrometry (MAX-DOAS), OMI-NASA and MAX-DOAS, and OMI-BIRA and OMI-NASA and monthly comparisons of OMI-BIRA and MAX-DOAS and OMI-NASA and MAX-DOAS. Daily comparisons showed a strong impact of effective cloud fraction (eCF), and correlations were better for eCF < 0.1 than for eCF < 0.3. By contrast, the monthly and multi-year monthly mean values yielded correlations of R² = 0.60 and R² = 0.95, respectively, for OMI-BIRA and MAX-DOAS, and R² = 0.45 and R² = 0.78 for OMI-NASA and MAX-DOAS, respectively. Therefore, use of the monthly mean HCHO datasets is strongly recommended. We conducted a sensitivity test for HCHO air mass factor (AMF) calculations with respect to the HCHO profile, the aerosol extinction coefficient (AEC), the HCHO profile–AEC combination, the aerosol optical depth (AOD), and the single scattering albedo (SSA) to explicitly account for the aerosol optical effects on the HCHO AMF. We found that the combination of AEC and HCHO profiles can account for 23–39% of the HCHO AMF variation. Furthermore, a high load of absorptive aerosols can exert a considerable effect (−53%) on the AMF. Finally, we used the HCHO monthly mean profiles from Goddard Earth Observing System coupled to Chemistry (GEOS-Chem), seasonal mean AECs from Cloud-Aerosol LIDAR with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) and monthly climatologies of AOD and SSA from the OMAERUV (OMI level-2 near UV aerosol data product) dataset at Xianghe station to determine the aerosol correction. The results reveal that aerosols can account for +6.37% to +20.7% of the HCHO monthly change. However, the changes are greatest in winter and are weaker in summer and autumn, indicating that the aerosol correction is more applicable under high-AAOD conditions and that there may be other reasons for the significant underestimation between satellite and MAX-DOAS observations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Atmospheric Remote Sensing)

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18 pages, 5843 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Quantifying the Evapotranspiration Rate and Its Cooling Effects of Urban Hedges Based on Three-Temperature Model and Infrared Remote Sensing

by Zhendong Zou, Yajun Yang and Guo Yu Qiu

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 202; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020202 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 36 | Viewed by 5494

Abstract

The evapotranspiration (ET) of urban hedges has been assumed to be an important component of the urban water budget and energy balance for years. However, because it is difficult to quantify the ET rate of urban hedges through conventional evapotranspiration methods, the ET [...] Read more.

The evapotranspiration (ET) of urban hedges has been assumed to be an important component of the urban water budget and energy balance for years. However, because it is difficult to quantify the ET rate of urban hedges through conventional evapotranspiration methods, the ET rate, characteristics, and the cooling effects of urban hedges remain unclear. This study aims to measure the ET rate and quantify the cooling effects of urban hedges using the ‘three-temperature model + infrared remote sensing (3T + IR)’, a fetch-free and high-spatiotemporal-resolution method. An herb hedge and a shrub hedge were used as field experimental sites in Shenzhen, a subtropical megacity. After verification, the ‘3T + IR’ technique was proven to be a reasonable method for measuring the ET of urban hedges. The results are as follows. (1) The ET rate of urban hedges was very high. The daily average rates of the herb and shrub hedges were 0.38 mm·h⁻¹ and 0.33 mm·h⁻¹, respectively, on the hot summer day. (2) Urban hedges had a strong ability to reduce the air temperature. The two hedges could consume 68.44% and 60.81% of the net radiation through latent heat of ET on the summer day, while their cooling rates on air temperature were 1.29 °C min⁻¹ m⁻² and 1.13 °C min⁻¹ m⁻², respectively. (3) Hedges could also significantly cool the urban underlying surface. On the summer day, the surface temperatures of the two hedges were 19 °C lower than that of the asphalt pavement. (4) Urban hedges had markedly higher ET rates (0.19 mm·h⁻¹ in the summer day) and cooling abilities (0.66 °C min⁻¹ m⁻² for air and 9.14 °C for underlying surface, respectively) than the lawn used for comparison. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research to quantitatively measure the ET rate of urban hedges, and our findings provide new insight in understanding the process of ET in urban hedges. This work may also aid in understanding the ET of urban vegetation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing of the Terrestrial Hydrologic Cycle)

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18 pages, 10526 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multi-Time Scale Analysis of Regional Aerosol Optical Depth Changes in National-Level Urban Agglomerations in China Using Modis Collection 6.1 Datasets from 2001 to 2017

by Lei Zhang, Ming Zhang and Yibin Yao

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 201; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020201 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 4244

Abstract

With the rapid development of China’s economy and industry, characterizing the spatial and temporal changes of aerosols in China has attracted widespread attention from researchers. The national-level urban agglomerations are the most concentrated areas of China’s economic, population and resource. Studying the spatial [...] Read more.

With the rapid development of China’s economy and industry, characterizing the spatial and temporal changes of aerosols in China has attracted widespread attention from researchers. The national-level urban agglomerations are the most concentrated areas of China’s economic, population and resource. Studying the spatial and temporal changes of aerosol optical depth (AOD) in these regions has practical guiding significance for effective monitoring of atmospheric particulate pollution. This paper analyzed the spatial and temporal variations of AOD in China’s urban agglomerations during 2001–2017 by using Terra Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Collection 6.1 (C6.1) Level 2 aerosol products (MOD04_L2). Five national-level urban agglomerations were chosen: Yangtze River Delta (YRD), Pearl River Delta (PRD), Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH), Yangtze River Middle-Reach (YRMR) and Cheng-Yu (CY). We analyzed the change patterns of AOD in different urban agglomerations at multi-time scales and built a time series decomposition model to mine the long-term trend, seasonal variation and abnormal change information of AOD time series. The result indicated that averaged AOD values in the five urban agglomerations were basically increased first and then decreased at the annual time scale during 2001–2017. The averaged AOD showed strong seasonal differences and AOD values in spring and summer were typically higher than those in autumn and winter. At the monthly time scale, the AOD typically varied from low in cold months to high in warm months and then decreased during the rainy periods. Time series decompositions revealed that a notable transition around 2007–2008 dominated the long-term overall trend over the five selected urban agglomerations and an initial upward tendency followed by a downward tendency was observed during 2001–2017. This study can be utilized to provide decision-making basis for atmospheric environmental governance and future development of urban agglomerations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing of Air Quality)

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17 pages, 6435 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Combination Analysis of Future Polar-Type Gravity Mission and GRACE Follow-On

by Yufeng Nie, Yunzhong Shen and Qiujie Chen

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 200; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020200 - 21 Jan 2019

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4306

Abstract

Thanks to the unprecedented success of Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), its successive mission GRACE Follow-On (GFO) has been in orbit since May 2018 to continue measuring the Earth’s mass transport. In order to possibly enhance GFO in terms of mass transport [...] Read more.

Thanks to the unprecedented success of Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), its successive mission GRACE Follow-On (GFO) has been in orbit since May 2018 to continue measuring the Earth’s mass transport. In order to possibly enhance GFO in terms of mass transport estimates, four orbit configurations of future polar-type gravity mission (FPG) (with the same payload accuracy and orbit parameters as GRACE, but differing in orbit inclination) are investigated by full-scale simulations in both standalone and jointly with GFO. The results demonstrate that the retrograde orbit modes used in FPG are generally superior to prograde in terms of gravity field estimation in the case of a joint GFO configuration. Considering the FPG’s independent capability, the orbit configurations with 89- and 91-degree inclinations (namely FPG-89 and FPG-91) are further analyzed by joint GFO monthly gravity field models over the period of one-year. Our analyses show that the FPG-91 basically outperforms the FPG-89 in mass change estimates, especially at the medium- and low-latitude regions. Compared to GFO & FPG-89, about 22% noise reduction over the ocean area and 17% over land areas are achieved by the GFO & FPG-91 combined model. Therefore, the FPG-91 is worthy to be recommended for the further orbit design of FPGs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing by Satellite Gravimetry)

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18 pages, 5739 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Refined Two-Stage Programming Approach of Phase Unwrapping for Multi-Baseline SAR Interferograms Using the Unscented Kalman Filter

by YanDong Gao, ShuBi Zhang, Tao Li, QianFu Chen, Xiang Zhang and ShiJin Li

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 199; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020199 - 20 Jan 2019

Cited by 30 | Viewed by 4526

Abstract

Phase unwrapping (PU) represents a key step in the reconstruction of digital elevation models (DEMs) and the monitoring of surface deformation from interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data. Compared with single-baseline (SB) PU, multi-baseline (MB) PU can resolve the phase discontinuities caused by [...] Read more.

Phase unwrapping (PU) represents a key step in the reconstruction of digital elevation models (DEMs) and the monitoring of surface deformation from interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data. Compared with single-baseline (SB) PU, multi-baseline (MB) PU can resolve the phase discontinuities caused by noise and phase layover induced by terrain undulations. However, the MB PU performance is limited primarily by its poor robustness to measurement bias and noise. To address this problem, we propose a refined 2-D MB PU method based on the two-stage programming approach (TSPA). The proposed method uses the unscented Kalman filter (UKF) to improve the performance of the second stage of the original TSPA method. Specifically, the proposed method maintains the first stage of the TSPA to estimate the range and azimuth gradients between neighbouring pixels. Then, median filtering is slightly used to reduce the effects of the noise gradients on the estimated phase gradients. Finally, the UKF model is used to unwrap the interferometric phases using an efficient quality-guided strategy based on heap-sort. This paper is the first to integrate the UKF into the TSPA framework. The proposed method is validated using bistatic and monostatic MB InSAR datasets, and the experimental results show that the proposed method is effective for MB PU problems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue SAR in Big Data Era)

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18 pages, 3768 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A 3D Point Cloud Filtering Method for Leaves Based on Manifold Distance and Normal Estimation

by Chunhua Hu, Zhou Pan and Pingping Li

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 198; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020198 - 20 Jan 2019

Cited by 32 | Viewed by 7887

Abstract

Leaves are used extensively as an indicator in research on tree growth. Leaf area, as one of the most important index in leaf morphology, is also a comprehensive growth index for evaluating the effects of environmental factors. When scanning tree surfaces using a [...] Read more.

Leaves are used extensively as an indicator in research on tree growth. Leaf area, as one of the most important index in leaf morphology, is also a comprehensive growth index for evaluating the effects of environmental factors. When scanning tree surfaces using a 3D laser scanner, the scanned point cloud data usually contain many outliers and noise. These outliers can be clusters or sparse points, whereas the noise is usually non-isolated but exhibits different attributes from valid points. In this study, a 3D point cloud filtering method for leaves based on manifold distance and normal estimation is proposed. First, leaf was extracted from the tree point cloud and initial clustering was performed as the preprocessing step. Second, outlier clusters filtering and outlier points filtering were successively performed using a manifold distance and truncation method. Third, noise points in each cluster were filtered based on the local surface normal estimation. The 3D reconstruction results of leaves after applying the proposed filtering method prove that this method outperforms other classic filtering methods. Comparisons of leaf areas with real values and area assessments of the mean absolute error (MAE) and mean absolute error percent (MAE%) for leaves in different levels were also conducted. The root mean square error (RMSE) for leaf area was 2.49 cm². The MAE values for small leaves, medium leaves and large leaves were 0.92 cm², 1.05 cm² and 3.39 cm², respectively, with corresponding MAE% values of 10.63, 4.83 and 3.8. These results demonstrate that the method proposed can be used to filter outliers and noise for 3D point clouds of leaves and improve 3D leaf visualization authenticity and leaf area measurement accuracy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aerial and Near-Field Remote Sensing Developments in Forestry)

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15 pages, 1798 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of Informative Bands Used in Different PLS Regressions for Estimating Leaf Biochemical Contents from Hyperspectral Reflectance

by Jia Jin and Quan Wang

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 197; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020197 - 20 Jan 2019

Cited by 31 | Viewed by 5145

Abstract

Partial least squares (PLS) regression models are widely applied in spectroscopy to estimate biochemical components through hyperspectral reflected information. To build PLS regression models based on informative spectral bands, rather than strongly collinear bands contained in the full spectrum, is essential for upholding [...] Read more.

Partial least squares (PLS) regression models are widely applied in spectroscopy to estimate biochemical components through hyperspectral reflected information. To build PLS regression models based on informative spectral bands, rather than strongly collinear bands contained in the full spectrum, is essential for upholding the performance of models. Yet no consensus has ever been reached on how to select informative bands, even though many techniques have been proposed for estimating plant properties using the vast array of hyperspectral reflectance. In this study, we designed a series of virtual experiments by introducing a dummy variable (C_d) with convertible specific absorption coefficients (SAC) into the well-accepted leaf reflectance PROSPECT-4 model for evaluating popularly adopted informative bands selection techniques, including stepwise-PLS, genetic algorithms PLS (GA-PLS) and PLS with uninformative variable elimination (UVE-PLS). Such virtual experiments have clearly defined responsible wavelength regions related to the dummy input variable, providing objective criteria for model evaluation. Results indicated that although all three techniques examined may estimate leaf biochemical contents efficiently, in most cases the selected bands, unfortunately, did not exactly match known absorption features, casting doubts on their general applicability. The GA-PLS approach was comparatively more efficient at accurately locating the informative bands (with physical and biochemical mechanisms) for estimating leaf biochemical properties and is, therefore, recommended for further applications. Through this study, we have provided objective evaluations of the potential of PLS regressions, which should help to understand the pros and cons of PLS regression models for estimating vegetation biochemical parameters. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Spectroscopy in Agriculture and Vegetation Research)

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21 pages, 8791 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of Different Machine Learning Methods and Deep-Learning Convolutional Neural Networks for Landslide Detection

by Omid Ghorbanzadeh, Thomas Blaschke, Khalil Gholamnia, Sansar Raj Meena, Dirk Tiede and Jagannath Aryal

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 196; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020196 - 20 Jan 2019

Cited by 598 | Viewed by 31425

Abstract

There is a growing demand for detailed and accurate landslide maps and inventories around the globe, but particularly in hazard-prone regions such as the Himalayas. Most standard mapping methods require expert knowledge, supervision and fieldwork. In this study, we use optical data from [...] Read more.

There is a growing demand for detailed and accurate landslide maps and inventories around the globe, but particularly in hazard-prone regions such as the Himalayas. Most standard mapping methods require expert knowledge, supervision and fieldwork. In this study, we use optical data from the Rapid Eye satellite and topographic factors to analyze the potential of machine learning methods, i.e., artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machines (SVM) and random forest (RF), and different deep-learning convolution neural networks (CNNs) for landslide detection. We use two training zones and one test zone to independently evaluate the performance of different methods in the highly landslide-prone Rasuwa district in Nepal. Twenty different maps are created using ANN, SVM and RF and different CNN instantiations and are compared against the results of extensive fieldwork through a mean intersection-over-union (mIOU) and other common metrics. This accuracy assessment yields the best result of 78.26% mIOU for a small window size CNN, which uses spectral information only. The additional information from a 5 m digital elevation model helps to discriminate between human settlements and landslides but does not improve the overall classification accuracy. CNNs do not automatically outperform ANN, SVM and RF, although this is sometimes claimed. Rather, the performance of CNNs strongly depends on their design, i.e., layer depth, input window sizes and training strategies. Here, we conclude that the CNN method is still in its infancy as most researchers will either use predefined parameters in solutions like Google TensorFlow or will apply different settings in a trial-and-error manner. Nevertheless, deep-learning can improve landslide mapping in the future if the effects of the different designs are better understood, enough training samples exist, and the effects of augmentation strategies to artificially increase the number of existing samples are better understood. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mass Movement and Soil Erosion Monitoring Using Remote Sensing)

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22 pages, 18212 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Synergetic Aerosol Layer Observation After the 2015 Calbuco Volcanic Eruption Event

by Fábio J. S. Lopes, Jonatan João Silva, Juan Carlos Antuña Marrero, Ghassan Taha and Eduardo Landulfo

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 195; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020195 - 19 Jan 2019

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 5493

Abstract

On 22 April 2015, the Calbuco volcano in Chile (Lat: 41.33

^{\circ}

S, Long: 72.62

^{\circ}

W) erupted after 43 years of inactivity followed by a great amount of aerosol injection into the atmosphere. The pyroclastic material dispersed into the atmosphere posed a [...] Read more.

On 22 April 2015, the Calbuco volcano in Chile (Lat: 41.33

^{\circ}

S, Long: 72.62

^{\circ}

W) erupted after 43 years of inactivity followed by a great amount of aerosol injection into the atmosphere. The pyroclastic material dispersed into the atmosphere posed a potential threat to aviation traffic and air quality over affected a large area. The plumes and debris spread from its location to Patagonian and Pampean regions, reaching the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and neighboring countries, such as Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, driven by the westerly winds at these latitudes. The presence of volcanic aerosol layers could be identified promptly at the proximities of Calbuco and afterwards by remote sensing using satellites and lidars in the path of the dispersed aerosols. The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board of AQUA/TERRA satellites and Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) on board of Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite were the space platforms used to track the injected layers and a multi-channel lidar system from Latin America Lidar Network (LALINET) SPU Lidar station in South America allowed us to get the spatial and temporal distribution of Calbuco ashes after its occurrence. The SPU lidar stations co-located Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) sunphotometers to help in the optical characterization. Here, we present the volcanic layer transported over São Paulo area and the detection of aerosol plume between 18 and 20 km. The path traveled by the volcanic aerosol to reach the Metropolitan Area of São Paulo (MASP) was tracked by CALIPSO and the aerosol optical and geometrical properties were retrieved at some points to monitor the plume evolution. Total attenuated backscatter profile at 532 nm obtained by CALIPSO revealed the height range extension of the aerosol plume between 18 and 20 km and are in agreement with SPU lidar range corrected signal at 532 nm. The daily evolution of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) at 532 and 355 nm, retrieved from AERONET sunphotometer, showed a substantial increasing on 27 April, the day of the volcanic plume detection at Metropolitan Area of São Paulo (MASP), achieving values of

0.33 \pm 0.16

and

0.22 \pm 0.09

at 355 and 532 nm, respectively. AERONET aerosol size distribution was dominated by fine mode aerosol over coarse mode, especially on 27 and 28 April. The space and time coincident aerosol extinction profiles from SPU lidar station and OMPS LP from the Calbuco eruption conducted on 27 April agreed on the double layer structure. The main objective of this study was the application of the transmittance method, using the Platt formalism, to calculate the optical and physical properties of volcanic plume, i.e., aerosol bottom and top altitude, the aerosol optical depth and lidar ratio. The aerosol plume was detected between 18 and 19.3 km, with AOD value of 0.159 at 532 nm and Ånsgtröm exponent of

0.61 \pm 0.58

. The lidar ratio retrieved was

76 \pm 27

sr and

63 \pm 21

sr at 532 and 355 nm, respectively. Considering the values of these parameters, the Calbuco volcanic aerosol layers could be classified as sulfates with some ash type. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Optical and Laser Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere)

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19 pages, 4323 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Hyperspectral Image Classification Using Similarity Measurements-Based Deep Recurrent Neural Networks

by Andong Ma, Anthony M. Filippi, Zhangyang Wang and Zhengcong Yin

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 194; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020194 - 19 Jan 2019

Cited by 41 | Viewed by 6196

Abstract

Classification is a common objective when analyzing hyperspectral images, where each pixel is assigned to a predefined label. Deep learning-based algorithms have been introduced in the remote-sensing community successfully in the past decade and have achieved significant performance improvements compared with conventional models. [...] Read more.

Classification is a common objective when analyzing hyperspectral images, where each pixel is assigned to a predefined label. Deep learning-based algorithms have been introduced in the remote-sensing community successfully in the past decade and have achieved significant performance improvements compared with conventional models. However, research on the extraction of sequential features utilizing a single image, instead of multi-temporal images still needs to be further investigated. In this paper, a novel strategy for constructing sequential features from a single image in long short-term memory (LSTM) is proposed. Two pixel-wise-based similarity measurements, including pixel-matching (PM) and block-matching (BM), are employed for the selection of sequence candidates from the whole image. Then, the sequential structure of a given pixel can be constructed as the input of LSTM by utilizing the first several matching pixels with high similarities. The resulting PM-based LSTM and BM-based LSTM are appealing, as all pixels in the whole image are taken into consideration when calculating the similarity. In addition, BM-based LSTM also utilizes local spectral-spatial information that has already shown its effectiveness in hyperspectral image classification. Two common distance measures, Euclidean distance and spectral angle mapping, are also investigated in this paper. Experiments with two benchmark hyperspectral images demonstrate that the proposed methods achieve marked improvements in classification performance relative to the other state-of-the-art methods considered. For instance, the highest overall accuracy achieved on the Pavia University image is 96.20% (using both BM-based LSTM and spectral angle mapping), which is an improvement compared with 84.45% overall accuracy generated by 1D convolutional neural networks. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Remote Sensing Image Processing)

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24 pages, 24260 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Nonlocal Tensor Sparse Representation and Low-Rank Regularization for Hyperspectral Image Compressive Sensing Reconstruction

by Jize Xue, Yongqiang Zhao, Wenzhi Liao and Jonathan Cheung-Wai Chan

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 193; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020193 - 19 Jan 2019

Cited by 54 | Viewed by 6400

Abstract

Hyperspectral image compressive sensing reconstruction (HSI-CSR) is an important issue in remote sensing, and has recently been investigated increasingly by the sparsity prior based approaches. However, most of the available HSI-CSR methods consider the sparsity prior in spatial and spectral vector domains via [...] Read more.

Hyperspectral image compressive sensing reconstruction (HSI-CSR) is an important issue in remote sensing, and has recently been investigated increasingly by the sparsity prior based approaches. However, most of the available HSI-CSR methods consider the sparsity prior in spatial and spectral vector domains via vectorizing hyperspectral cubes along a certain dimension. Besides, in most previous works, little attention has been paid to exploiting the underlying nonlocal structure in spatial domain of the HSI. In this paper, we propose a nonlocal tensor sparse and low-rank regularization (NTSRLR) approach, which can encode essential structured sparsity of an HSI and explore its advantages for HSI-CSR task. Specifically, we study how to utilize reasonably the

l_{1}

-based sparsity of core tensor and tensor nuclear norm function as tensor sparse and low-rank regularization, respectively, to describe the nonlocal spatial-spectral correlation hidden in an HSI. To study the minimization problem of the proposed algorithm, we design a fast implementation strategy based on the alternative direction multiplier method (ADMM) technique. Experimental results on various HSI datasets verify that the proposed HSI-CSR algorithm can significantly outperform existing state-of-the-art CSR techniques for HSI recovery. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Learning to Understand Remote Sensing Images)

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26 pages, 6902 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Hyperspectral Anomaly Detection via Dictionary Construction-Based Low-Rank Representation and Adaptive Weighting

by Yixin Yang, Jianqi Zhang, Shangzhen Song and Delian Liu

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 192; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020192 - 19 Jan 2019

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 4360

Abstract

Anomaly detection (AD), which aims to distinguish targets with significant spectral differences from the background, has become an important topic in hyperspectral imagery (HSI) processing. In this paper, a novel anomaly detection algorithm via dictionary construction-based low-rank representation (LRR) and adaptive weighting is [...] Read more.

Anomaly detection (AD), which aims to distinguish targets with significant spectral differences from the background, has become an important topic in hyperspectral imagery (HSI) processing. In this paper, a novel anomaly detection algorithm via dictionary construction-based low-rank representation (LRR) and adaptive weighting is proposed. This algorithm has three main advantages. First, based on the consistency with AD problem, the LRR is employed to mine the lowest-rank representation of hyperspectral data by imposing a low-rank constraint on the representation coefficients. Sparse component contains most of the anomaly information and can be used for anomaly detection. Second, to better separate the sparse anomalies from the background component, a background dictionary construction strategy based on the usage frequency of the dictionary atoms for HSI reconstruction is proposed. The constructed dictionary excludes possible anomalies and contains all background categories, thus spanning a more reasonable background space. Finally, to further enhance the response difference between the background pixels and anomalies, the response output obtained by LRR is multiplied by an adaptive weighting matrix. Therefore, the anomaly pixels are more easily distinguished from the background. Experiments on synthetic and real-world hyperspectral datasets demonstrate the superiority of our proposed method over other AD detectors. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing for Target Object Detection and Identification)

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20 pages, 8884 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Rapid Flood Progress Monitoring in Cropland with NASA SMAP

by Md. Shahinoor Rahman, Liping Di, Eugene Yu, Li Lin, Chen Zhang and Junmei Tang

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 191; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020191 - 19 Jan 2019

Cited by 44 | Viewed by 6699

Abstract

Research in different agricultural sectors, including in crop loss estimation during flood and yield estimation, substantially rely on inundation information. Spaceborne remote sensing has widely been used in the mapping and monitoring of floods. However, the inability of optical remote sensing to cloud [...] Read more.

Research in different agricultural sectors, including in crop loss estimation during flood and yield estimation, substantially rely on inundation information. Spaceborne remote sensing has widely been used in the mapping and monitoring of floods. However, the inability of optical remote sensing to cloud penetration and the scarcity of fine temporal resolution SAR data hinder the application of flood mapping in many cases. Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) level 4 products, which are model-driven soil moisture data derived from SMAP observations and are available at 3-h intervals, can offer an intermediate but effective solution. This study maps flood progress in croplands by incorporating SMAP surface soil moisture, soil physical properties, and national floodplain information. Soil moisture above the effective soil porosity is a direct indication of soil saturation. Soil moisture also increases considerably during a flood event. Therefore, this approach took into account three conditions to map the flooded pixels: a minimum of 0.05 m³m⁻³ increment in soil moisture from pre-flood to post-flood condition, soil moisture above the effective soil porosity, and the holding of saturation condition for the 72 consecutive hours. Results indicated that the SMAP-derived maps were able to successfully map most of the flooded areas in the reference maps in the majority of the cases, though with some degree of overestimation (due to the coarse spatial resolution of SMAP). Finally, the inundated croplands are extracted from saturated areas by Spatial Hazard Zone areas (SHFA) of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and cropland data layer (CDL). The flood maps extracted from SMAP data are validated with FEMA-declared affected counties as well as with flood maps from other sources. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from Agro-Geoinformatics 2018)

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5 pages, 184 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Soil Moisture Remote Sensing across Scales

by Nemesio Rodríguez-Fernández, Ahmad Al Bitar, Andreas Colliander and Tianjie Zhao

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 190; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020190 - 19 Jan 2019

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 4465

Abstract

Soil moisture plays an important role in the water, carbon, and energy cycles. We summarize the 13 articles collected in this Special Issue on soil moisture remote sensing across scales in terms of the spatial, temporal, and frequency scales studied. We also review [...] Read more.

Soil moisture plays an important role in the water, carbon, and energy cycles. We summarize the 13 articles collected in this Special Issue on soil moisture remote sensing across scales in terms of the spatial, temporal, and frequency scales studied. We also review these papers regarding the data, the methods, and the different applications discussed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Moisture Remote Sensing Across Scales)

30 pages, 43448 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Adaptive Framework for the Delineation of Homogeneous Forest Areas Based on LiDAR Points

by Moritz Bruggisser, Markus Hollaus, Di Wang and Norbert Pfeifer

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 189; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020189 - 18 Jan 2019

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 5224

Abstract

We propose a flexible framework for automated forest patch delineations that exploits a set of canopy structure features computed from airborne laser scanning (ALS) point clouds. The approach is based on an iterative subdivision of the point cloud using k-means clustering followed by [...] Read more.

We propose a flexible framework for automated forest patch delineations that exploits a set of canopy structure features computed from airborne laser scanning (ALS) point clouds. The approach is based on an iterative subdivision of the point cloud using k-means clustering followed by an iterative merging step to tackle oversegmentation. The framework can be adapted for different applications by selecting relevant input features that best measure the intended homogeneity. In our study, the performance of the segmentation framework was tested for the delineation of forest patches with a homogeneous canopy height structure on the one hand and with similar water cycle conditions on the other. For the latter delineation, canopy components that impact interception and evapotranspiration were used, and the delineation was mainly driven by leaf area, tree functional type, and foliage density. The framework was further tested on two scenes covering a variety of forest conditions and topographies. We demonstrate that the delineated patches capture well the spatial distributions of relevant canopy features that are used for defining the homogeneity. The consistencies range from

R^{2} = 0.84

to

R^{2} = 0.86

and from

R^{2} = 0.80

to

R^{2} = 0.91

for the most relevant features in the delineation of patches with similar height structure and water cycle conditions, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 3D Point Clouds in Forests)

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15 pages, 14326 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Heat Flux Sources Analysis to the Ross Ice Shelf Polynya Ice Production Time Series and the Impact of Wind Forcing

by Zian Cheng, Xiaoping Pang, Xi Zhao and Alfred Stein

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 188; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020188 - 18 Jan 2019

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4684

Abstract

The variation of Ross Ice Shelf Polynya (RISP) ice production is a synergistic result of several factors. This study aims to analyze the 2003–2017 RISP ice production time series with respect to the impact of wind forcing on heat flux sources. RISP ice [...] Read more.

The variation of Ross Ice Shelf Polynya (RISP) ice production is a synergistic result of several factors. This study aims to analyze the 2003–2017 RISP ice production time series with respect to the impact of wind forcing on heat flux sources. RISP ice production was estimated from passive microwave sea ice concentration images and reanalysis meteorological data using a thermodynamic model. The total ice production was divided into four components according to the amount of ice produced by different heat fluxes: solar radiation component (V_s), longwave radiation component (V_l), sensible heat flux component (V_fs), and latent heat flux component (V_fe). The results show that V_fs made the largest contribution, followed by V_l and V_fe, while V_s had a negative contribution. Our study reveals that total ice production and V_l, V_fs, and V_fe highly correlated with the RISP area size, whereas V_s negatively correlated with the RISP area size in October, and had a weak influence from April to September. Since total ice production strongly correlates with the polynya area and this significantly correlates with the wind speed of the previous day, strong wind events lead to sharply increased ice production most of the time. Strong wind events, however, may only lead to mildly increasing ice production in October, when enlarged V_s reduces the ice production. Wind speed influences ice production by two mechanisms: impact on polynya area, and impact on heat exchange and phase transformation of ice. V_fs and V_fe are influenced by both mechanisms, while V_s and V_l are only influenced by impact on polynya area. These two mechanisms show different degrees of influence on ice production during different periods. Persistent offshore winds were responsible for the large RISP area and high ice production in October 2005 and June 2007. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing of Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions)

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26 pages, 21464 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance Assessment of TanDEM-X DEM for Mountain Glacier Elevation Change Detection

by Julian Podgórski, Christophe Kinnard, Michał Pętlicki and Roberto Urrutia

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 187; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020187 - 18 Jan 2019

Cited by 29 | Viewed by 6461

Abstract

TanDEM-X digital elevation model (DEM) is a global DEM released by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) at outstanding resolution of 12 m. However, the procedure for its creation involves the combination of several DEMs from acquisitions spread between 2011 and 2014, which casts [...] Read more.

TanDEM-X digital elevation model (DEM) is a global DEM released by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) at outstanding resolution of 12 m. However, the procedure for its creation involves the combination of several DEMs from acquisitions spread between 2011 and 2014, which casts doubt on its value for precise glaciological change detection studies. In this work we present TanDEM-X DEM as a high-quality product ready for use in glaciological studies. We compare it to Aerial Laser Scanning (ALS)-based dataset from April 2013 (1 m), used as the ground-truth reference, and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) V003 DEM and SRTM v3 DEM (both 30 m), serving as representations of past glacier states. We use a method of sub-pixel coregistration of DEMs by Nuth and Kääb (2011) to determine the geometric accuracy of the products. In addition, we propose a slope-aspect heatmap-based workflow to remove the errors resulting from radar shadowing over steep terrain. Elevation difference maps obtained by subtraction of DEMs are analyzed to obtain accuracy assessments and glacier mass balance reconstructions. The vertical accuracy (± standard deviation) of TanDEM-X DEM over non-glacierized area is very good at 0.02 ± 3.48 m. Nevertheless, steep areas introduce large errors and their filtering is required for reliable results. The 30 m version of TanDEM-X DEM performs worse than the finer product, but its accuracy, −0.08 ± 7.57 m, is better than that of SRTM and ASTER. The ASTER DEM contains errors, possibly resulting from imperfect DEM creation from stereopairs over uniform ice surface. Universidad Glacier has been losing mass at a rate of −0.44 ± 0.08 m of water equivalent per year between 2000 and 2013. This value is in general agreement with previously reported mass balance estimated with the glaciological method for 2012–2014. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mountain Remote Sensing)

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21 pages, 3759 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Adaptive End-to-End Classification Approach for Mobile Laser Scanning Point Clouds Based on Knowledge in Urban Scenes

by Mingxue Zheng, Huayi Wu and Yong Li

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 186; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020186 - 18 Jan 2019

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3766

Abstract

It is fundamental for 3D city maps to efficiently classify objects of point clouds in urban scenes. However, it is still a large challenge to obtain massive training samples for point clouds and to sustain the huge training burden. To overcome it, a [...] Read more.

It is fundamental for 3D city maps to efficiently classify objects of point clouds in urban scenes. However, it is still a large challenge to obtain massive training samples for point clouds and to sustain the huge training burden. To overcome it, a knowledge-based approach is proposed. The knowledge-based approach can explore discriminating features of objects based on people’s understanding of the surrounding environment, which exactly replaces the role of training samples. To implement the approach, a two-step segmentation procedure is carried out in this paper. In particular, Fourier Fitting is applied for second adaptive segmentation to separate points of multiple objects lying within a single group of the first segmentation. Then height difference and three geometrical eigen-features are extracted. In comparison to common classification methods, which need massive training samples, only basic knowledge of objects in urban scenes is needed to build an end-to-end match between objects and extracted features in the proposed approach. In addition, the proposed approach has high computational efficiency because of no heavy training process. Qualitative and quantificational experimental results show the proposed approach has promising performance for object classification in various urban scenes. Full article

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21 pages, 5559 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of Sampling and Cross-Validation Tuning Strategies for Regional-Scale Machine Learning Classification

by Christopher A. Ramezan, Timothy A. Warner and Aaron E. Maxwell

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 185; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020185 - 18 Jan 2019

Cited by 188 | Viewed by 17283

Abstract

High spatial resolution (1–5 m) remotely sensed datasets are increasingly being used to map land covers over large geographic areas using supervised machine learning algorithms. Although many studies have compared machine learning classification methods, sample selection methods for acquiring training and validation data [...] Read more.

High spatial resolution (1–5 m) remotely sensed datasets are increasingly being used to map land covers over large geographic areas using supervised machine learning algorithms. Although many studies have compared machine learning classification methods, sample selection methods for acquiring training and validation data for machine learning, and cross-validation techniques for tuning classifier parameters are rarely investigated, particularly on large, high spatial resolution datasets. This work, therefore, examines four sample selection methods—simple random, proportional stratified random, disproportional stratified random, and deliberative sampling—as well as three cross-validation tuning approaches—k-fold, leave-one-out, and Monte Carlo methods. In addition, the effect on the accuracy of localizing sample selections to a small geographic subset of the entire area, an approach that is sometimes used to reduce costs associated with training data collection, is investigated. These methods are investigated in the context of support vector machines (SVM) classification and geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA), using high spatial resolution National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) orthoimagery and LIDAR-derived rasters, covering a 2,609 km² regional-scale area in northeastern West Virginia, USA. Stratified-statistical-based sampling methods were found to generate the highest classification accuracy. Using a small number of training samples collected from only a subset of the study area provided a similar level of overall accuracy to a sample of equivalent size collected in a dispersed manner across the entire regional-scale dataset. There were minimal differences in accuracy for the different cross-validation tuning methods. The processing time for Monte Carlo and leave-one-out cross-validation were high, especially with large training sets. For this reason, k-fold cross-validation appears to be a good choice. Classifications trained with samples collected deliberately (i.e., not randomly) were less accurate than classifiers trained from statistical-based samples. This may be due to the high positive spatial autocorrelation in the deliberative training set. Thus, if possible, samples for training should be selected randomly; deliberative samples should be avoided. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Region Based Classification (RBC), Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA) and Deep Learning (DL) for Remote Sensing Applications)

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21 pages, 4830 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optical Classification of the Remote Sensing Reflectance and Its Application in Deriving the Specific Phytoplankton Absorption in Optically Complex Lakes

by Kun Xue, Ronghua Ma, Dian Wang and Ming Shen

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 184; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020184 - 18 Jan 2019

Cited by 37 | Viewed by 5556

Abstract

Optical water types (OWTs) were identified from remote sensing reflectance (R_rs(λ)) values in a field-measured dataset of several large lakes in the lower reaches of the Yangtze and Huai River (LYHR) Basin. Four OWTs were determined from normalized remote sensing [...] Read more.

Optical water types (OWTs) were identified from remote sensing reflectance (R_rs(λ)) values in a field-measured dataset of several large lakes in the lower reaches of the Yangtze and Huai River (LYHR) Basin. Four OWTs were determined from normalized remote sensing reflectance spectra (NR_rs(λ)) using the k-means clustering approach, and were identified in the Sentinel 3A OLCI (Ocean Land Color Instrument) image data over lakes in the LYHR Basin. The results showed that 1) Each OWT is associated with different bio-optical properties, such as the concentration of chlorophyll-a (Chla), suspended particulate matter (SPM), proportion of suspended particulate inorganic matter (SPIM), and absorption coefficient of each component. One optical water type showed an obvious characteristic with a high contribution of mineral particles, while one type was mostly determined by a high content of phytoplankton. The other types belonged to the optically mixed water types. 2) Class-specific Chla inversion algorithms performed better for all water types, except type 4, compared to the overall dataset. In addition, class-specific inversion algorithms for estimating the Chla-specific absorption coefficient of phytoplankton at 443 nm (a^*_ph(443)) were developed based on the relationship between a^*_ph(443) and Chla of each OWT. The spatial variations in the class-specific model-derived a^*_ph(443) values were illustrated for 2 March 2017, and 24 October 2017. 3) The dominant water type and the Shannon index (H) were used to characterize the optical variability or similarity of the lakes in the LYHR Basin using cloud-free OLCI images in 2017. A high optical variation was located in the western and southern parts of Lake Taihu, the southern part of Lake Hongze, Lake Chaohu, and several small lakes near the Yangtze River, while the northern part of Lake Hongze had a low optical diversity. This work demonstrates the potential and necessity of optical classification in estimating bio-optical parameters using class-specific inversion algorithms and monitoring of the optical variations in optically complex and dynamic lake waters. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Monitoring of Water Quality and Water Environment)

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19 pages, 14727 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Model Simulation and Prediction of Decadal Mountain Permafrost Distribution Based on Remote Sensing Data in the Qilian Mountains from the 1990s to the 2040s

by Shangmin Zhao, Shifang Zhang, Weiming Cheng and Chenghu Zhou

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 183; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020183 - 18 Jan 2019

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4244

Abstract

Based on the results of remote sensing data interpretation, this paper aims to simulate and predict the mountain permafrost distribution changes affected by the mean decadal air temperature (MDAT), from the 1990s to the 2040s, in the Qilian Mountains. A bench-mark map is [...] Read more.

Based on the results of remote sensing data interpretation, this paper aims to simulate and predict the mountain permafrost distribution changes affected by the mean decadal air temperature (MDAT), from the 1990s to the 2040s, in the Qilian Mountains. A bench-mark map is visually interpreted to acquire a mountain permafrost distribution from the 1990s, based on remote sensing images. Through comparison and estimation, a logistical regression model (LRM) is constructed using the bench-mark map, topographic and land coverage factors and MDAT data from the 1990s. MDAT data from the 2010s to the 2040s are predicted according to survey data from meteorological stations. Using the LRM, MDAT data and the factors, the probabilities (p) of decadal mountain permafrost distribution from the 1990s to the 2040s are simulated and predicted. According to the p value, the permafrost distribution statuses are classified as ‘permafrost probable’ (p > 0.7), ‘permafrost possible’ (0.7 ≥ p ≥ 0.3) and ‘permafrost improbable’ (p < 0.3). From the 1990s to the 2040s, the ‘permafrost probable’ type mainly degrades to that of ‘permafrost possible’, with the total area degenerating from 73.5 × 10³ km² to 66.5 × 10³ km². The ‘permafrost possible’ type mainly degrades to that of ‘permafrost impossible’, with a degradation area of 6.5 × 10³ km², which accounts for 21.3% of the total area. Meanwhile, the accuracy of the simulation results can reach about 90%, which was determined by the validation of the simulation results for the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s based on remote sensing data interpretation results. This research provides a way of understanding the mountain permafrost distribution changes affected by the rising air temperature rising over a long time, and can be used in studies of other mountains with similar topographic and climatic conditions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing of Dynamic Permafrost Regions)

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Remote Sens., Volume 11, Issue 2 (January-2 2019) – 110 articles

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