Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Version of Record
Publication Date
10-2016
Keywords
Landsat, land cover, change detection, automated mapping, random forest, South Africa
Description
The paper evaluated the Landsat Automated Land Cover Update Mapping (LALCUM) system designed to rapidly update a land cover map to a desired nominal year using a pre-existing reference land cover map. The system uses the Iteratively Reweighted Multivariate Alteration Detection (IRMAD) to identify areas of change and no change. The system then automatically generates large amounts of training samples (n > 1 million) in the no-change areas as input to an optimized Random Forest classifier. Experiments were conducted in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa using a reference land cover map from 2008, a change mask between 2008 and 2011 and Landsat ETM+ data for 2011. The entire system took 9.5 h to process. We expected that the use of the change mask would improve classification accuracy by reducing the number of mislabeled training data caused by land cover change between 2008 and 2011. However, this was not the case due to exceptional robustness of Random Forest classifier to mislabeled training samples. The system achieved an overall accuracy of 65%–67% using 22 detailed classes and 72%–74% using 12 aggregated national classes. “Water”, “Plantations”, “Plantations—clearfelled”, “Orchards—trees”, “Sugarcane”, “Built-up/dense settlement”, “Cultivation—Irrigated” and “Forest (indigenous)” had user’s accuracies above 70%. Other detailed classes (e.g., “Low density settlements”, “Mines and Quarries”, and “Cultivation, subsistence, drylands”) which are required for operational, provincial-scale land use planning and are usually mapped using manual image interpretation, could not be mapped using Landsat spectral data alone. However, the system was able to map the 12 national classes, at a sufficiently high level of accuracy for national scale land cover monitoring. This update approach and the highly automated, scalable LALCUM system can improve the efficiency and update rate of regional land cover mapping.
Publication Title
Remote Sensing
Volume
8
Issue
11
First Page
888
DOI of Published Version
10.3390/rs8110888
Pages
24
Type
text
Format
application/pdf
Language
en
Publisher
MDPI
Rights
Copyright © The Author(s)
Recommended Citation
Wassels, Konrad J.; van den Bergh, Frans; Roy, David P.; Salmon, Brian P.; Steenkemp, Karen C.; MacAlister, Bryan; Swanepoel, Derick; and Jewitt, Debbie, "Rapid Land Cover Map Updates Using Change Detection and Robust Random Forest ClassifiersRapid Land Cover Map Updates Using Change Detection and Robust Random Forest Classifiers" (2016). GSCE Faculty Publications. 23.
https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/gsce_pubs/23
Included in
Forest Sciences Commons, Physical and Environmental Geography Commons, Remote Sensing Commons