辽河口国家级自然保护区湿地时空演变遥感评估

以1980年、1990年、2000年、2010年和2020年Landsat遥感影像作为数据源,结合野外实测数据和Google Earth的高分影像,采用面向对象的决策树分类方法,得到1980～2020年辽河口国家级自然保护区土地覆盖变化情况。结合土地利用转移矩阵、景观格局分析法以及等扇方位分析法,研究近40 a辽河口国家级自然保护区内的人工类型用地时空动态演变特征。结果表明：1980～2020年间,研究区内自然湿地减少了270.12 km2,主要转化为耕地、油井、建设用地及交通用地等人工土地覆盖类型。由于受人类活动干扰较大,研究区内景观趋于破碎化、均衡化,景观异质性降低。近40 a来,研究区内人工土地覆盖类型主要沿北西北方向扩张。国家政策和经济发展对辽河口湿地的演变过程影响极大,农田开垦、城镇建设、油田开发和海水养殖等人类活动是自然湿地演变的主要驱动力。     

三峡库区植被生物量遥感估算方法研究

利用遥感手段估算三峡库区植被的生物量,综合野外观测数据,分析了Landsat TM数据的光谱信息与植被生物量的关系,通过相关性分析表明Landsat TM多光谱数据能较好地反映该地区的植被生物量水平。然后,利用Landsat TM数据分别建立了针对三峡库区的阔叶林、针叶林、针阔混交林、灌木林和草本植被5种主要植被类型的生物量遥感估算模型,并利用所得模型计算了该区域2002年植被的地上生物量总量为1.05×10⁸ Mg。
     

Updating the 2001 National Land Cover Database Impervious Surface Products to 2006 using Landsat Imagery Change Detection Methods

A prototype method was developed to update the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2001 to a nominal date of 2006. NLCD 2001 is widely used as a baseline for national land cover and impervious cover conditions. To enable the updating of this database in an optimal manner, methods are designed to be accomplished by individual Landsat scene. Using conservative change thresholds based on land cover classes, areas of change and no-change were segregated from change vectors calculated from normalized Landsat scenes from 2001 and 2006. By sampling from NLCD 2001 impervious surface in unchanged areas, impervious surface predictions were estimated for changed areas within an urban extent defined by a companion land cover classification. Methods were developed and tested for national application across six study sites containing a variety of urban impervious surface. Results show the vast majority of impervious surface change associated with urban development was captured, with overall RMSE from 6.86 to 13.12% for these areas. Changes of urban development density were also evaluated by characterizing the categories of change by percentile for impervious surface. This prototype method provides a relatively low cost, flexible approach to generate updated impervious surface using NLCD 2001 as the baseline.     

A new method for assessing the trophic state of large dams in Cyprus using satellite remotely sensed data

A timely low-cost method providing information on water quality and trophic state to various users of reservoir or dam water is a must. Conventional methods involved tedious and expensive in situ and laboratory studies. Satellite-borne sensors have the capability of providing repetitive, low-cost, multispectra, timely and reliable information over areas. This paper shows the development of a new method for assessing the trophic state in inland water bodies such as dams. The method is based on matching the atmospheric corrected reflectance values obtained from Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) image data with the defined spectral signature ranges obtained from ground spectro-radiometric measurements in order to assess the trophic state conditions. The proposed method has been applied to Landsat TM and Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) satellite images of the Kourris and Asprokremmos Dams in Cyprus, acquired during the winter, spring, summer and autumn period. The reflectance values for the images acquired on 3 June 1985, 11 September 1998, 11 May 2000 and 31 January 2001 for the Asprokremmos Dam were found to be 4.5, 3.5, 3.7 and 11.2%, and those for the Kourris Dam were found to be 5, 3.5, 3.1 and 5.2%, respectively. Reflectance values between 3 and 7% correspond to a eutrophic state and values >7% to a hypertrophic state. The results obtained from the proposed method were found to comply with those found using the trophic state index (TSI) approach. For example, the trophic state for the Landsat TM images of Asprokremmos Dam acquired on 11 May 2000 and 31 January 2001, was determined to be TSI=68 and 79, respectively, using the available secchi disc depths (SDDs) and the Carlson TSI. Such values correspond to eutrophic and hypetrophic trophic states that comply with the same outcomes found from the proposed method.     

Scale influences on the remote estimation of evapotranspiration using multiple satellite sensors

There is considerable interest in using remote sensing to characterize the hydrologic behavior of the land surface on a routine basis. Information on moisture fluxes between the surface and lower atmosphere reveals linkages and land-atmosphere feedback mechanisms, aiding our understanding of energy and water balance cycles. Techniques that combine information on land and atmospheric properties with remotely sensed variables would allow improved prediction for a number of hydrological variables. Over the last few decades, there has been a focus on better determining evapotranspiration and its spatial variability, but for many regions routine prediction is not generally available at a spatial resolution appropriate to the underlying surface heterogeneity. Over agricultural regions, this is particularly critical, since the spatial extent of typical field scales is not regularly resolved within the pixel resolution of satellite sensors. Understanding the role of landscape heterogeneity and its influence on the scaling behavior of surface fluxes as observed by satellite sensors with different spatial resolutions is a critical research need. To attend this task, data from Landsat-ETM (60 m), ASTER (90 m), and MODIS (1020 m) satellite platforms are employed to independently estimate evapotranspiration. The range of the satellite sensor resolutions allows analyses that span scales from (point-scale) in-situ tower measurements to the MODIS kilometer-scale. Evapotranspiration estimates derived at these multiple resolutions were assessed against eddy covariance flux measurements collected during the 2002 Soil Moisture Atmospheric Coupling Experiment (SMACEX) over the Walnut Creek watershed in Iowa. Together, these data allow a comprehensive scale intercomparison of remotely sensed predictions, which include intercomparisons of the evapotranspiration products from the various sensors as well as a statistical analysis for the retrievals at the watershed scale. A high degree of consistency was observed between the retrievals from the higher-resolution satellite platforms (Landsat-ETM and ASTER). The MODIS-based estimates, while unable to discriminate the influence of land surface heterogeneity at the field scale, effectively reproduced the watershed average response, illustrating the utility of this sensor for regional-scale evapotranspiration estimation.     

Land cover mapping of large areas using chain classification of neighboring Landsat satellite images

Satellite imagery is the major data source for regional to global land cover maps. However, land cover mapping of large areas with medium-resolution imagery is costly and often constrained by the lack of good training and validation data. Our goal was to overcome these limitations, and to test chain classifications, i.e., the classification of Landsat images based on the information in the overlapping areas of neighboring scenes. The basic idea was to classify one Landsat scene first where good ground truth data is available, and then to classify the neighboring Landsat scene using the land cover classification of the first scene in the overlap area as training data. We tested chain classification for a forest/non-forest classification in the Carpathian Mountains on one horizontal chain of six Landsat scenes, and two vertical chains of two Landsat scenes each. We collected extensive training data from Quickbird imagery for classifying radiometrically uncorrected data with Support Vector Machines (SVMs). The SVMs classified 8 scenes with overall accuracies between 92.1% and 98.9% (average of 96.3%). Accuracy loss when automatically classifying neighboring scenes with chain classification was 1.9% on average. Even a chain of six images resulted only in an accuracy loss of 5.1% for the last image compared to a reference classification from independent training data for the last image. Chain classification thus performed well, but we note that chain classification can only be applied when land cover classes are well represented in the overlap area of neighboring Landsat scenes. As long as this constraint is met though, chain classification is a powerful approach for large area land cover classifications, especially in areas of varying training data availability.     

Generation of dense time series synthetic Landsat data through data blending with MODIS using a spatial and temporal adaptive reflectance fusion model

Landsat imagery with a 30 m spatial resolution is well suited for characterizing landscape-level forest structure and dynamics. While Landsat images have advantageous spatial and spectral characteristics for describing vegetation properties, the Landsat sensor's revisit rate, or the temporal resolution of the data, is 16 days. When considering that cloud cover may impact any given acquisition, this lengthy revisit rate often results in a dearth of imagery for a desired time interval (e.g., month, growing season, or year) especially for areas at higher latitudes with shorter growing seasons. In contrast, MODIS (MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) has a high temporal resolution, covering the Earth up to multiple times per day, and depending on the spectral characteristics of interest, MODIS data have spatial resolutions of 250 m, 500 m, and 1000 m. By combining Landsat and MODIS data, we are able to capitalize on the spatial detail of Landsat and the temporal regularity of MODIS acquisitions. In this research, we apply and demonstrate a data fusion approach (Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model, STARFM) at a mainly coniferous study area in central British Columbia, Canada. Reflectance data for selected MODIS channels, all of which were resampled to 500 m, and Landsat (at 30 m) were combined to produce 18 synthetic Landsat images encompassing the 2001 growing season (May to October). We compared, on a channel-by-channel basis, the surface reflectance values (stratified by broad land cover types) of four real Landsat images with the corresponding closest date of synthetic Landsat imagery, and found no significant difference between real (observed) and synthetic (predicted) reflectance values (mean difference in reflectance: mixed forest x? = 0.086, σ = 0.088, broadleaf x? = 0.019, σ = 0.079, coniferous x? = 0.039, σ = 0.093). Similarly, a pixel based analysis shows that predicted and observed reflectance values for the four Landsat dates were closely related (mean r² = 0.76 for the NIR band; r² = 0.54 for the red band; p < 0.01). Investigating the trend in NDVI values in synthetic Landsat values over a growing season revealed that phenological patterns were well captured; however, when seasonal differences lead to a change in land cover (i.e., disturbance, snow cover), the algorithm used to generate the synthetic Landsat images was, as expected, less effective at predicting reflectance.     

Estimating burn severity from Landsat dNBR and RdNBR indices across western Canada

National parks in western Canada experience wildland fire events at differing frequencies, intensities, and burn severities. These episodic disturbances have varying implications for various biotic and abiotic processes and patterns. To predict burn severity, the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) algorithm, derived from Landsat imagery, has been used extensively throughout the wildland fire community. In Canada, few accuracy assessments have been undertaken to compare the accuracy of the dNBR algorithm to its relative form (RdNBR). To investigate the accuracies of these two algorithms in Canada's National Parks, we hypothesized that RdNBR would outperform dNBR in two specific applications based on former research by Miller and Thode (2007). The first was the capacity of the RdNBR to produce more accurate results than dNBR over a wide range of fires and secondly in pre-fire landscapes with low canopy closure and high heterogeneity. To investigate these questions, dNBR and RdNBR indices were extracted from Landsat imagery and compared to the measurements of the Composite Burn Index (Key & Benson, 2006). Following this, best fit models were developed and statistically tested at the individual, regional, overall, and vegetative levels. We then developed confusion matrices to assess the relative strength and weakness of each model. As an additional means of comparing model accuracy, we tested Hall et al.'s (2008) non-linear model in estimating burn severity for the study's western boreal region and individual fires. The results indicate that across all fires, the RdNBR-derived model did not estimate burn severity more accurately than dNBR (65.2% versus 70.2% classification accuracy, respectively) nor in the heterogeneous and low canopy cover landscapes. In addition, we conclude that RdNBR is no more effective than dNBR at the regional, individual, and fine-scale vegetation levels. The Hall et al. (2008) model was found to estimate burn severity in the western boreal region with a higher overall kappa than both the dNBR and RdNBR study models. The results herein support the continued research and pursuit of developing regional remote sensing derived models in western Canada.     

An enhanced spatial and temporal adaptive reflectance fusion model for complex heterogeneous regions

Due to technical and budget limitations, remote sensing instruments trade spatial resolution and swath width. As a result not one sensor provides both high spatial resolution and high temporal resolution. However, the ability to monitor seasonal landscape changes at fine resolution is urgently needed for global change science. One approach is to “blend” the radiometry from daily, global data (e.g. MODIS, MERIS, SPOT-Vegetation) with data from high-resolution sensors with less frequent coverage (e.g. Landsat, CBERS, ResourceSat). Unfortunately, existing algorithms for blending multi-source data have some shortcomings, particularly in accurately predicting the surface reflectance of heterogeneous landscapes. This study has developed an enhanced spatial and temporal adaptive reflectance fusion model (ESTARFM) based on the existing STARFM algorithm, and has tested it with both simulated and actual satellite data. Results show that ESTARFM improves the accuracy of predicted fine-resolution reflectance, especially for heterogeneous landscapes, and preserves spatial details. Taking the NIR band as an example, for homogeneous regions the prediction of the ESTARFM is slightly better than the STARFM (average absolute difference [AAD] 0.0106 vs. 0.0129 reflectance units). But for a complex, heterogeneous landscape, the prediction accuracy of ESTARFM is improved even more compared with STARFM (AAD 0.0135 vs. 0.0194). This improved fusion algorithm will support new investigations into how global landscapes are changing across both seasonal and interannual timescales.     

Landsat-based inventory of glaciers in western Canada, 1985-2005

We report on a glacier inventory for the Canadian Cordillera south of 60°N, across the two western provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, containing ~ 30,000 km² of glacierized terrain. Our semi-automated method extracted glacier extents from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) scenes for 2005 and 2000 using a band ratio (TM3/TM5). We compared these extents with glacier cover for the mid-1980s from high-altitude, aerial photography for British Columbia and from Landsat TM imagery for Alberta. A 25 m digital elevation model (DEM) helped to identify debris-covered ice and to split the glaciers into their respective drainage basins. The estimated mapping errors are 3-4% and arise primarily from seasonal snow cover. Glaciers in British Columbia and Alberta respectively lost − 10.8 ± 3.8% and − 25.4% ± 4.1% of their area over the period 1985-2005. The region-wide annual shrinkage rate of − 0.55% a^− 1 is comparable to rates reported for other mountain ranges in the late twentieth century. Least glacierized mountain ranges with smaller glaciers lost the largest fraction of ice cover: the highest relative ice loss in British Columbia (− 24.0 ± 4.6%) occurred in the northern Interior Ranges, while glaciers in the northern Coast Mountains declined least (− 7.7 ± 3.4%).