Object-based image analysis for operational fine-scale regional mapping of land cover within river corridors from multispectral imagery and thematic data

Accurate mapping of land-cover diversity within riparian areas at a regional scale is a major challenge for better understanding the influence of riparian landscapes and related natural and anthropogenic pressures on river ecological status. As the structure (composition and spatial organization) of riparian area land cover (RALC) is generally not accessible using moderate-scale satellite imagery, finer spatial resolution imagery and specific mapping techniques are needed. For this purpose, we developed a classification procedure based on a specific multiscale object-based image analysis (OBIA) scheme dedicated to producing fine-scale and reliable RALC maps in different geographical contexts (relief, climate and geology). This OBIA scheme combines information from very high spatial resolution multispectral imagery (satellite or airborne) and available spatial thematic data using fuzzy expert knowledge classification rules. It was tested over the Hérault River watershed (southern France), which presents contrasting landscapes and a total stream length of 1150 km, using the combination of SPOT (Système Probatoire d'Observation de la Terre) 5 XS imagery (10 m pixels), aerial photography (0.5 m pixels) and several national spatial thematic data. A RALC map was produced (22 classes) with an overall accuracy of 89% and a kappa index of 83%, according to a targeted land-cover pressures typology (six categories of pressures). The results of this experimentation demonstrate that the application of OBIA to multisource spatial data provides an efficient approach for the mapping and monitoring of RALC that can be implemented operationally at a regional or national scale. We further analysed the influence of map resolution on the quantification of riparian spatial indicators to highlight the importance of such data for studying the influence of landscapes on river ecological status at the riparian scale.     

A review of regional science applications of satellite remote sensing in urban settings

This paper reviews the potential applications of satellite remote sensing to regional science research in urban settings. Regional science is the study of social problems that have a spatial dimension. The availability of satellite remote sensing data has increased significantly in the last two decades, and these data constitute a useful data source for mapping the composition of urban settings and analyzing changes over time. The increasing spatial resolution of commercial satellite imagery has influenced the emergence of new research and applications of regional science in urban settlements because it is now possible to identify individual objects of the urban fabric. The most common applications found in the literature are the detection of urban deprivation hot spots, quality of life index assessment, urban growth analysis, house value estimation, urban population estimation and urban social vulnerability assessment. The satellite remote sensing imagery used in these applications has medium, high or very high spatial resolution, such as images from Landsat MSS, Landsat TM and ETM+, SPOT, ASTER, IRS, Ikonos and QuickBird. Consistent relationships between socio-economic variables derived from censuses and field surveys and proxy variables of vegetation coverage measured from satellite remote sensing data have been found in several cities in the US. Different approaches and techniques have been applied successfully around the world, but local research is always needed to account for the unique elements of each place. Spectral mixture analysis, object-oriented classifications and image texture measures are some of the techniques of image processing that have been implemented with good results. Many regional scientists remain skeptical that satellite remote sensing will produce useful information for their work. More local research is needed to demonstrate the real potential and utility of satellite remote sensing for regional science in urban environments.     

Tropical forest mapping from coarse spatial resolution satellite data: Production and accuracy assessment issues

Global to regional datasets from coarse spatial resolution satellite sensors are increasingly becoming available. Land cover and vegetation extent maps are among the terrestrial products derived from such data. Whilst they provide a previously unavailable synoptic view of global situations, accuracy assessment methodological issues are often ignored when creating these digital databases or producing statistics from such sources. This paper looks at how these issues are addressed in the framework of the Joint Research Centre's TREES (Tropical Ecosystem Environment observation by Satellite) project, initiated to map and monitor the pan-tropical humid forest belt using Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data. The paper shows that without accuracy assessment and a correction procedure, both the thematic legend and statistical data derived from coarse spatial maps can be misleading.     

Mapping urban areas on a global scale: which of the eight maps now available is more accurate?

Eight groups from government and academia have created 10 global maps that offer a ca 2000 portrait of land in urban use. Our initial investigation found that their estimates of the total amount of urban land differ by as much as an order of magnitude (0.27–3.52 ×10⁶ km²). Since it is not possible for these heterogeneous maps to all represent urban areas accurately, we undertake the first global accuracy assessment of these maps using a two-tiered approach that draws on a stratified random sample of 10 000 high-resolution Google Earth validation sites and 140 medium-resolution Landsat-based city maps. Employing a wide range of accuracy measures at different spatial scales, we conclude that the new MODIS 500 m resolution global urban map has the highest accuracy, followed by a thresholded version of the Global Impervious Surface Area map based on the Night-time Lights and LandScan datasets.     

Assessing tropical cyclone impacts using object-based moderate spatial resolution image analysis: a case study in Bangladesh

The environmental and societal impacts of tropical cyclones could be reduced using a range of management initiatives. Remote sensing can be a cost effective, accurate, and potential tool for mapping the multiple impacts caused by tropical cyclones using high-to-moderate spatial resolution (5–30 m) satellite imagery to provide data on the following essential parameters – evacuation, relief, and management of natural resources. This study developed and evaluated an approach for assessing the impacts of tropical cyclones through object-based image analysis and moderate spatial resolution imagery. Pre- and post-cyclone maps of artificial and natural features are required for assessing the overall impacts in the landscape that could be acquired by mapping specific land cover types. We used the object-based approach to map land-cover types in pre- and post-cyclone Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT) 5 image data and the post-classification comparison technique to identify changes in the particular features in the landscape. Cyclone Sidr (2007) was used to test the applicability of this approach in Sarankhola Upazila in Bangladesh. The object-based approach provided accurate results for classifying features from pre- and post-cyclone satellite images with an overall accuracy of 95.43% and 93.27%, respectively. Mapped changes identified the extent, type, and form of cyclone induced impacts. Our results indicate that 63.15% of the study area was significantly affected by cyclone Sidr. The majority of mapped damage was found in vegetation, cropped lands, settlements, and infrastructure. The damage results were verified through the high spatial resolution satellite imagery, reports and pictures that were taken after the cyclone. The methods developed may be used in future to assess the multiple impacts caused by tropical cyclones in Bangladesh and other similar environments for the purposes of tropical cyclone disaster management.     

A linearised pixel-swapping method for mapping rural linear land cover features from fine spatial resolution remotely sensed imagery

Accurate maps of rural linear land cover features, such as paths and hedgerows, would be useful to ecologists, conservation managers and land planning agencies. Such information might be used in a variety of applications (e.g., ecological, conservation and land management applications). Based on the phenomenon of spatial dependence, sub-pixel mapping techniques can be used to increase the spatial resolution of land cover maps produced from satellite sensor imagery and map such features with increased accuracy. Aerial photography with a spatial resolution of 0.25 m was acquired of the Christchurch area of Dorset, UK. The imagery was hard classified using a simple Mahalanobis distance classifier and the classification degraded to simulate land cover proportion images with spatial resolutions of 2.5 and 5 m. A simple pixel-swapping algorithm was then applied to each of the proportion images. Sub-pixels within pixels were swapped iteratively until the spatial correlation between neighbouring sub-pixels for the entire image was maximised. Visual inspection of the super-resolved output showed that prediction of the position and dimensions of hedgerows was comparable with the original imagery. The maps displayed an accuracy of 87%. To enhance the prediction of linear features within the super-resolved output, an anisotropic modelling component was added. The direction of the largest sums of proportions was calculated within a moving window at the pixel level. The orthogonal sum of proportions was used in estimating the anisotropy ratio. The direction and anisotropy ratio were then used to modify the pixel-swapping algorithm so as to increase the likelihood of creating linear features in the output map. The new linear pixel-swapping method led to an increase in the accuracy of mapping fine linear features of approximately 5% compared with the conventional pixel-swapping method.     

The effects of ecologically determined spatial complexity on the classification accuracy of simulated coral reef images

Numerous studies have been conducted to compare the classification accuracy of coral reef maps produced from satellite and aerial imagery with different sensor characteristics such as spatial or spectral resolution, or under different environmental conditions. However, in additional to these physical environment and sensor design factors, the ecologically determined spatial complexity of the reef itself presents significant challenges for remote sensing objectives. While previous studies have considered the spatial resolution of the sensors, none have directly drawn the link from sensor spatial resolution to the scale and patterns in the heterogeneity of reef benthos. In this paper, we will study how the accuracy of a commonly used maximum likelihood classification (MLC) algorithm is affected by spatial elements typical of a Caribbean atoll system present in high spectral and spatial resolution imagery.The results indicate that the degree to which ecologically determined spatial factors influence accuracy is dependent on both the amount of coral cover on the reef and the spatial resolution of the images being classified, and may be a contributing factor to the differences in the accuracies obtained for mapping reefs in different geographical locations. Differences in accuracy are also obtained due to the methods of pixel selection for training the maximum likelihood classification algorithm. With respect to estimation of live coral cover, a method which randomly selects training samples from all samples in each class provides better estimates for lower resolution images while a method biased to select the pixels with the highest substrate purity gave better estimations for higher resolution images.     

Single tree species classification with a hypothetical multi-spectral satellite

The requirements for high resolution multi-spectral satellite images to be used in single tree species classification for forest inventories are investigated, especially with respect to spatial resolution, sensor noise and geo-registration. In the hypothetical setup, a 3D tree crown map is first obtained from very high resolution panchromatic aerial imagery and subsequently each crown is classified into one of a set of known tree species such that the difference between a model multi-spectral image generated from the 3D crown map and an acquired multi-spectral satellite image of the forested area is minimized. The investigation is conducted partly by generating synthetic data from a 3D crown map from a real mixed forest stand and partly on hypothetical high resolution multi-spectral satellite images obtained from very high resolution colour infrared aerial photographs, allowing different hypothetical spatial resolutions. Conclusions are that until a new generation of even higher resolution satellites becomes available, the most feasible source of remote sensing data for single tree classification will be aerial platforms.     

Assessment of forest cover in Russia by combining a wall-to-wall coarse-resolution land-cover map with a sample of 30 m resolution forest maps

The process of gathering land-cover information has evolved significantly over the last decade (2000–2010). In addition to this, current technical infrastructure allows for more rapid and efficient processing of large multi-temporal image databases at continental scale. But whereas the data availability and processing capabilities have increased, the production of dedicated land-cover products with adequate accuracy is still a prerequisite for most users. Indeed, spatially explicit land-cover information is important and does not exist for many regions. Our study focuses on the boreal Eurasia region for which limited land-cover information is available at regional level.

The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate that a coarse-resolution land-cover map of the Russian Federation, the ‘TerraNorte’ map at 230 m × 230 m resolution for the year 2010, can be used in combination with a sample of reference forest maps at 30 m resolution to correctly assess forest cover in the Russian federation.

First, an accuracy assessment of the TerraNorte map is carried out through the use of reference forest maps derived from finer-resolution satellite imagery (Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor). A sample of 32 sites was selected for the detailed identification of forest cover from Landsat TM imagery. A methodological approach is developed to process and analyse the Landsat imagery based on unsupervised classification and cluster-based visual labelling. The resulting forest maps over the 32 sites are then used to evaluate the accuracy of the forest classes of the TerraNorte land-cover map. A regression analysis shows that the TerraNorte map produces satisfactory results for areas south of 65° N, whereas several forest classes in more northern areas have lower accuracy. This might be explained by the strong reflectance of background (i.e. non-tree) cover.

A forest area estimate is then derived by calibration of the TerraNorte Russian map using a sample of Landsat-derived reference maps (using a regression estimator approach). This estimate compares very well with the FAO FRA exercise for 2010 (1% difference for total forested area). We conclude that the TerraNorte map combined with finer-resolution reference maps can be used as a reliable spatial information layer for forest resources assessment over the Russian Federation at national scale.     

Resolution dependent errors in remote sensing of cultivated areas

Remote sensing has become a common and effective method for estimating the areal coverage of land cover classes. One class of particular interest is agriculture as area estimates of cultivated lands are important for purposes such as estimating yields or irrigation needs. The synoptic coverage of satellite imagery and the relative ease of automated analysis have led to widespread mapping of agriculture using remote sensing. The accuracy of area estimates derived from these maps is known to be related to the accuracy of the maps. However, even in the situation where the map is very accurate, errors in area estimates may occur. These errors result from the behavior of the distribution of subpixel proportions of cultivated areas, and how that behavior changes as a result of sensor spatial resolution and class definitions. The sensitivity of estimates of cultivated areas to sensor spatial resolution and to the choice of threshold used to define cultivated land is explored in six agriculturally distinct locations around the world. Using a beta model for the distribution of subpixel proportions that is parameterized using variograms, it is possible to model the distribution of subpixel proportions for any spatial resolution. When the spatial resolution is small with respect to the spatial structure of the landscape (as measured by the variogram range) use of any class definition threshold produces an estimate very close to the true area coverage. On the other hand, as the resolution becomes coarse in relation to the variogram range, the subpixel proportions are no longer concentrated at the extremes of the distribution and the difference between the estimated and the true area has greater sensitivity to the selected threshold used to define classes. Thus, for the cases examined here, both the resolution and the class definition threshold have a strong influence on area estimates. The spatial resolutions where errors can be large depend on landscape spatial structure, which can be quantified using variograms. The net effect is that for the same spatial resolution, some places will exhibit much larger errors in area estimates than others. For the site in the Anhui province of China, where agricultural fields are very small (0.07 ha on the average), area estimates are highly sensitive to class definition thresholds even at the relatively fine resolution of 45 m. Conversely, in California (USA) spatial resolutions as coarse as 500 m can be used to reliably estimate cultivated areas. Results also suggest that the proportion of the total area that is cultivated significantly influences the accuracy of area estimates. When the area proportion is low, the class definition threshold must also be low to achieve an accurate area estimate. Conversely, in areas dominated by agriculture, a very stringent class definition of cultivated lands is required for accurate area estimates. While explored in the context of estimation of cultivated areas, the findings presented here are generic to the problem of area estimation using remote sensing.     

Subpixel land-cover classification for improved urban area estimates using Landsat

Urban areas are Earth’s fastest growing land use that impact hydrological and ecological systems and the surface energy balance. The identification and extraction of accurate spatial information relating to urban areas is essential for future sustainable city planning owing to its importance within global environmental change and human–environment interactions. However, monitoring urban expansion using medium resolution (30–250 m) imagery remains challenging due to the variety of surface materials that contribute to measured reflectance resulting in spectrally mixed pixels. This research integrates high spatial resolution orthophotos and Landsat imagery to identify differences across a range of diverse urban subsets within the rapidly expanding Perth Metropolitan Region (PMR), Western Australia. Results indicate that calibrating Landsat-derived subpixel land-cover estimates with correction values (calculated from spatially explicit comparisons of subpixel Landsat values to classified high-resolution data which accounts for over [under] estimations of Landsat) reduces moderate resolution urban area over (under) estimates by on an average 55.08% for the PMR. This approach can be applied to other urban areas globally through use of frequently available and/or low-cost high spatial resolution imagery (e.g. using Google Earth). This will improve urban growth estimations to help monitor and measure change whilst providing metrics to facilitate sustainable urban development targets within cities around the world.     

Sub-pixel water temperature estimation from thermal-infrared imagery using vectorized lake features

Water skin temperature derived from thermal infrared satellite data are used in a wide variety of studies. Many of these studies would benefit from frequent, high spatial resolution (100 m pixels) thermal imagery but currently, at any given location, such data are only available every few weeks from spaceborne sensors such as ASTER. Lower spatial resolution (1 km pixels) thermal imagery is available multiple times per day at any given location, from several sensors such as MODIS on board both the AQUA and TERRA satellite platforms. In order to fully exploit lower spatial resolution imagery, a sub-pixel unmixing technique has been developed and tested at Quesnel Lake, British Columbia, Canada. This approach produces accurate, frequent high spatial resolution water skin temperature maps by exploiting a priori knowledge of water boundaries derived from vectorized water features. The pixel water-fraction maps are then input to a gradient descent algorithm to solve the mixed pixel ground leaving radiance equation for sub-pixel water temperature. Ground-leaving radiance is estimated from standard temperature and emissivity data products for pure pixels and a simple regression technique to estimate atmospheric effects. In this test case, MODIS 1 km thermal imagery was used along with 1:50,000 water features to create a high-resolution (100 m) water skin temperature map. This map is compared to a concurrent ASTER temperature image and found to be within 1 °C of the ASTER skin temperature 99% of the time. This is a considerable improvement over the 2.55 °C difference between the original MODIS product and ASTER image due to land temperature contamination. The algorithm is simple, effective, and unlocks a largely untapped resource for limnological and hydrological studies.     

Study of the potential of alternative crops by integration of multisource data using a neuro‐fuzzy technique

This work proposes a neuro‐fuzzy method for suggesting alternative crop production over a region using integrated data obtained from land‐survey maps as well as satellite imagery. The methodology proposed here uses an artificial neural network (multilayer perceptron, MLP) to predict alternative crop production. For each pixel, the MLP takes vector input comprising elevation, rainfall and goodness values of different existing crops. The first two components of the aforementioned input, that is, elevation and rainfall, are determined from contour information of land‐survey maps. The other components, such as goodness values of different existing crops, are based on the productivity estimates of soil determined by fuzzyfication and expert opinion (on soil) along with production quality by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) obtained from satellite imagery. The methodology attempts to ensure that the suggested crop will also be a high productivity crop for that region.     

基于CNN的吉林一号卫星城市土地覆被制图潜力评估

以吉林一号视频07B星高分遥感影像为基础,采用卷积神经网络（CNN）对城区土地覆被进行精细分类,设置多组光谱变量集合,并与最大似然法、多层感知机和支持向量机分类方法进行对比,全面评估分析各方法对城区土地覆被信息提取的适用性及波谱特征对分类精度的影响。结果表明：CNN模型的分类精度最高,总体精度高于90%,相比其他方法提高幅度达12%以上,能够显著降低“椒盐”噪音;红边波段对所有方法总体分类精度贡献十分有限,而近红外波段对分类精度的提升较为明显;总体而言,红边和近红外波段对CNN分类精度影响较为微弱。深度学习应用于吉林一号高分遥感数据能获取高精度城区土地覆被分类图,可为城市土地资源配置,城市规划与管理提供重要的支撑。     

Mapping invasive wetland plants in the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve using quickbird satellite imagery

The National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) program is a nationally coordinated research and monitoring program that identifies and tracks changes in ecological resources of representative estuarine ecosystems and coastal watersheds. In recent years, attention has focused on using high spatial and spectral resolution satellite imagery to map and monitor wetland plant communities in the NERRs, particularly invasive plant species. The utility of this technology for that purpose has yet to be assessed in detail. To that end, a specific high spatial resolution satellite imagery, QuickBird, was used to map plant communities and monitor invasive plants within the Hudson River NERR (HRNERR). The HRNERR contains four diverse tidal wetlands (Stockport Flats, Tivoli Bays, Iona Island, and Piermont), each with unique water chemistry (i.e., brackish, oligotrophic and fresh) and, consequently, unique assemblages of plant communities, including three invasive plants (Trapa natans, Phragmites australis, and Lythrum salicaria). A maximum-likelihood classification was used to produce 20-class land cover maps for each of the four marshes within the HRNERR. Conventional contingency tables and a fuzzy set analysis served as a basis for an accuracy assessment of these maps. The overall accuracies, as assessed by the contingency tables, were 73.6%, 68.4%, 67.9%, and 64.9% for Tivoli Bays, Stockport Flats, Piermont, and Iona Island, respectively. Fuzzy assessment tables lead to higher estimates of map accuracies of 83%, 75%, 76%, and 76%, respectively. In general, the open water/tidal channel class was the most accurately mapped class and Scirpus sp. was the least accurately mapped. These encouraging accuracies suggest that high-resolution satellite imagery offers significant potential for the mapping of invasive plant species in estuarine environments.     

Classification of the wildland–urban interface: A comparison of pixel- and object-based classifications using high-resolution aerial photography

The expansion of urban development into wildland areas can have significant consequences, including an increase in the risk of structural damage from wildfire. Land-use and land-cover maps can assist decision-makers in targeting and prioritizing risk mitigation activities, and remote sensing techniques provide effective and efficient methods to create such maps. However, some image processing approaches may be more appropriate than others in distinguishing land-use and land-cover categories, particularly when classifying high spatial resolution imagery for urbanizing environments. Here we explore the accuracy of pixel-based and object-based classification methods used for mapping in the wildland–urban interface (WUI) with free, readily available, high spatial resolution urban imagery, which is available in many places to municipal and local fire management agencies. Results indicate that an object-based classification approach provides a higher accuracy than a pixel-based classification approach when distinguishing between the selected land-use and land-cover categories. For example, an object-based approach resulted in a 41.73% greater accuracy for the built area category, which is of particular importance to WUI wildfire mitigation.     

Annually modelling built-settlements between remotely-sensed observations using relative changes in subnational populations and lights at night

Mapping urban features/human built-settlement extents at the annual time step has a wide variety of applications in demography, public health, sustainable development, and many other fields. Recently, while more multitemporal urban features/human built-settlement datasets have become available, issues still exist in remotely-sensed imagery due to spatial and temporal coverage, adverse atmospheric conditions, and expenses involved in producing such datasets. Remotely-sensed annual time-series of urban/built-settlement extents therefore do not yet exist and cover more than specific local areas or city-based regions. Moreover, while a few high-resolution global datasets of urban/built-settlement extents exist for key years, the observed date often deviates many years from the assigned one. These challenges make it difficult to increase temporal coverage while maintaining high fidelity in the spatial resolution. Here we describe an interpolative and flexible modelling framework for producing annual built-settlement extents. We use a combined technique of random forest and spatio-temporal dasymetric modelling with open source subnational data to produce annual 100 m × 100 m resolution binary built-settlement datasets in four test countries located in varying environmental and developmental contexts for test periods of five-year gaps. We find that in the majority of years, across all study areas, the model correctly identified between 85 and 99% of pixels that transition to built-settlement. Additionally, with few exceptions, the model substantially out performed a model that gave every pixel equal chance of transitioning to built-settlement in each year. This modelling framework shows strong promise for filling gaps in cross-sectional urban features/built-settlement datasets derived from remotely-sensed imagery, provides a base upon which to create urban future/built-settlement extent projections, and enables further exploration of the relationships between urban/built-settlement area and population dynamics.     

Mapping vegetation community types in a highly disturbed landscape: integrating hierarchical object-based image analysis with lidar-derived canopy height data

Focusing on the semi-arid and highly disturbed landscape of San Clemente Island (SCI), California, we test the effectiveness of incorporating a hierarchical object-based image analysis (OBIA) approach with high-spatial resolution imagery and canopy height surfaces derived from light detection and ranging (lidar) data for mapping vegetation communities. The hierarchical approach entailed segmentation and classification of fine-scale patches of vegetation growth forms and bare ground, with shrub species identified, and a coarser-scale segmentation and classification to generate vegetation community maps. Such maps were generated for two areas of interest on SCI, with and without vegetation canopy height data as input, primarily to determine the effectiveness of such structural data on mapping accuracy. Overall accuracy is highest for the vegetation community map derived by integrating airborne visible and near-infrared imagery having very high spatial resolution with the lidar-derived canopy height data. The results demonstrate the utility of the hierarchical OBIA approach for mapping vegetation with very high spatial resolution imagery, and emphasizes the advantage of both multi-scale analysis and digital surface data for accurately mapping vegetation communities within highly disturbed landscapes.     

Circa 2014 African land-cover maps compatible with FROM-GLC and GLC2000 classification schemes based on multi-seasonal Landsat data

A new African land-cover data set has been developed using multi-seasonal Landsat Operational Land Imager (OLI) imagery mainly acquired around 2014, supplemented by Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+). Each path/row location was covered by five images, including one in the growing season of vegetation and the others in four meteorological seasons (i.e. spring, summer, autumn, and winter), choosing the image with the least cloud coverage. The data set has two classification schemes, i.e. Finer Resolution Observation and Monitoring – Global Land Cover (FROM-GLC) and Global Land Cover 2000 (GLC2000), providing greater flexibility in product comparisons and applications. Random forest was used as the classifier in this project. Overall accuracies were 71% and 67% for the maps in the FROM-GLC classification scheme at level 1 and level 2, respectively, and 70% for the map in the GLC2000 classification scheme. The newly developed African land-cover map achieved a greater improvement in accuracy compared to previous products in the FROM-GLC project. Multi-seasonal imagery helped increase the mapping accuracy by better differentiating vegetation types with similar spectral features in one specific season and identifying vegetation with a shorter growing season. Night light data with 1 km resolution was used to identify the potential area of impervious surfaces to avoid overestimating the distribution of impervious surfaces without decreasing the spatial resolution. Stacking multi-seasonal mapping results could adequately minimize the disturbance of cloud and shade.