Monitoring the response of land ice to climate change requires accurate and repeatable topographic surveys. The SPOT5-HRS (High Resolution Stereoscopic) instrument covers up to 120 km by 600 km in a single pass and has the potential to accurately map the poorly known topography of most glaciers and ice caps. The acquisition of a large HRS archive over ice-covered regions is planned by the French Space Agency (CNES) and Spotimage, France during the 2007–2008 International Polar Year (IPY). Here, we report on the accuracy and value of HRS digital elevation model (DEM) over ice and snow surfaces.
A DEM is generated by combining tools available from CNES with the PCI OrthoengineSE software, using HRS images acquired in May 2004 over South-East Alaska (USA) and northern British Columbia (Canada). The DEM is evaluated through comparison with shuttle radar topographic mission (SRTM) DEM and ICESAT data, on and around the glaciers. A horizontal shift of 50 m is found between the HRS and SRTM DEMs and is attributed to errors in the SRTM DEM. Over ice-free areas, HRS elevations are 7 m higher than those of SRTM, with a standard deviation of ± 25 m for the difference between the two DEMs. The 7-m difference is partly attributed to the differential penetration of the electromagnetic waves (visible for HRS; microwave for SRTM) in snow and vegetation.
We also report on the application of sequential DEMs (SRTM DEM in February 2000 and HRS DEM in May 2004) for the monitoring of glacier elevation changes. We map the topographic changes induced by a surge of one tributary of Ferris Glacier. Maximum surface lowering of 42 (± 10) m and rising of 77 (± 10) m are observed in the 4 years time interval. Thinning rates up to 10 (± 2.5) m/yr are observed at low altitudes and confirm the ongoing wastage of glaciers in South-East Alaska. 相似文献
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission distinguished itself as the first near-global spaceborne mission to demonstrate direct sensitivity to vertical vegetation structure. Whether this sensitivity is viewed as exploitable signal or unwanted bias, a great deal of interest exists in retrieving vegetation canopy height information from the SRTM data. This study presents a comprehensive application-specific assessment of SRTM data quality, focusing on the characterization and mitigation of two primary sources of relative vertical error: uncompensated Shuttle mast motion and random phase noise. The assessment spans four test sites located in the upper Midwestern United States and examines the dependence of data quality on both frequency, i.e., C-band vs. X-band, and the number of acquired datatakes. The results indicate that the quality of SRTM data may be higher than previously thought. Novel mitigation strategies include a knowledge-based approach to sample averaging, which has the potential to reduce phase noise error by 43 to 80%. The strategies presented here are being implemented as part of an ongoing effort to produce regional- to continental-scale estimates of vegetation canopy height within the conterminous U.S. 相似文献
Exploiting synergies afforded by a host of recently available national-scale data sets derived from interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) and passive optical remote sensing, this paper describes the development of a novel empirical approach for the provision of regional- to continental-scale estimates of vegetation canopy height. Supported by data from the 2000 Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), the National Elevation Dataset (NED), the LANDFIRE project, and the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2001, this paper describes a data fusion and modeling strategy for developing the first-ever high-resolution map of canopy height for the conterminous U.S. The approach was tested as part of a prototype study spanning some 62,000 km2 in central Utah (NLCD mapping zone 16). A mapping strategy based on object-oriented image analysis and tree-based regression techniques is employed. Empirical model development is driven by a database of height metrics obtained from an extensive field plot network administered by the USDA Forest Service-Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. Based on data from 508 FIA field plots, an average absolute height error of 2.1 m (r = 0.88) was achieved for the prototype mapping zone. 相似文献
The use of lidar and radar instruments to measure forest structure attributes such as height and biomass at global scales is being considered for a future Earth Observation satellite mission, DESDynI (Deformation, Ecosystem Structure, and Dynamics of Ice). Large footprint lidar makes a direct measurement of the heights of scatterers in the illuminated footprint and can yield accurate information about the vertical profile of the canopy within lidar footprint samples. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is known to sense the canopy volume, especially at longer wavelengths and provides image data. Methods for biomass mapping by a combination of lidar sampling and radar mapping need to be developed.In this study, several issues in this respect were investigated using aircraft borne lidar and SAR data in Howland, Maine, USA. The stepwise regression selected the height indices rh50 and rh75 of the Laser Vegetation Imaging Sensor (LVIS) data for predicting field measured biomass with a R2 of 0.71 and RMSE of 31.33 Mg/ha. The above-ground biomass map generated from this regression model was considered to represent the true biomass of the area and was used as a reference map since no better biomass map exists for the area. Random samples were taken from the biomass map and the correlation between the sampled biomass and co-located SAR signature was studied. The best models were used to extend the biomass from lidar samples into all forested areas in the study area, which mimics a procedure that could be used for the future DESDYnI mission. It was found that depending on the data types used (quad-pol or dual-pol) the SAR data can predict the lidar biomass samples with R2 of 0.63-0.71, RMSE of 32.0-28.2 Mg/ha up to biomass levels of 200-250 Mg/ha. The mean biomass of the study area calculated from the biomass maps generated by lidar-SAR synergy was within 10% of the reference biomass map derived from LVIS data. The results from this study are preliminary, but do show the potential of the combined use of lidar samples and radar imagery for forest biomass mapping. Various issues regarding lidar/radar data synergies for biomass mapping are discussed in the paper. 相似文献
This paper reports the results of a near-global validation of the SRTM DEM dataset, using a unique database of completely independent height measurements derived from satellite altimeter echoes, primarily gathered by ERS-1. These heights are obtained using a rule-based expert system which identifies each echo as 1 of 11 different characteristic shapes, and selects the optimal retracking algorithm to obtain best range to surface. The results of this comparison, which includes over 54 million altimeter derived heights, show generally very good agreement with the SRTM data, with global statistics for mean difference of 3 m and a standard deviation of 16 m. Quantitative validation results are given for each continent and are summarised here.
Spatial distribution models are increasingly used in ecological studies, but are limited by the poor accuracy of remote sensing (RS) for mapping microhabitat (< 0.1 ha) features. Mapping accuracy can be improved by combining advanced RS image-processing techniques with microhabitat data expressed as a structural complexity index (SCI). To test this idea, we used principal components analysis (PCA) and an additive SCI method developed for forest ecology (calculated by re-scaling and summing representative structural variables) to summarize 13 microhabitat-scale (0.04 ha) vegetation structure attributes describing the rare mountain bongo antelope's (Tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci) habitat in Kenya's Aberdare mountains. Microhabitat data were collected in 127 plots: 37 related to bongo habitat use, 90 from 1 km-spaced grid points representing overall habitat availability and bongo non-presence. We then assessed each SCI's effectiveness for discerning microhabitat variability and bongo habitat selection, using Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests for differences in mean SCI scores among plots divided into 4 vegetation classes, and the Area Under the Curve (AUC) of receiver operating characteristics from logistic regressions. We also examined the accuracy of predicted SCI scores resulting from regression models based on variables derived from a) ASTER imagery processed with spectral mixture and texture analysis, b) an SRTM DEM and c) rainfall data, using the 90 grid plots for model training and the bongo plots as an independent test dataset. Of the five SCIs derived, two performed best: the PCA-derived Canopy Structure Index (CSI) and an additive index summarizing 8 structural variables (AI8). CSI and AI8 showed significant differences between 5 of 6 vegetation class pairs, strong abilities to distinguish bongo-selected from available habitat (AUCs = 0.71 (CSI); 0.70 (AI8)), and predicted scores 60-110% more accurate than reported by other studies using RS to quantify individual microhabitat structural attributes (CSI model R2 = 0.51, RMSE = 0.19 (training) and 0.21 (test); AI8 model R2 = 0.46, RMSE = 0.17 (training) and 0.19 (test)). Repeating the Wilcoxon tests and logistic regressions with RS-predicted SCI values showed that AI8 most effectively preserved the patterns found with the observed SCIs. These results demonstrate that SCIs effectively characterize microhabitat structure and selection, and boost microhabitat mapping accuracy when combined with enhanced RS image-processing techniques. This approach can improve distribution models and broaden their applicability, makes RS more relevant to applied ecology, and shows that processing field data to be more compatible with RS can improve RS-based habitat mapping accuracy. 相似文献