Classifier ensembles for land cover mapping with multi-spectral SAR imagery

Waske B, Braun M (2009)


Publication Type: Journal article, Original article

Publication year: 2009

Journal

Publisher: Elsevier

Book Volume: 5

Pages Range: 450-457

URI: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924271609000070

DOI: 10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2009.01.003

Abstract

SAR data are almost independent from weather conditions, and thus are well suited for mapping of seasonally changing variables such as land cover. In regard to recent and upcoming missions, multitemporal and multi-frequency approaches become even more attractive. In the present study, classifier ensembles (i.e., boosted decision tree and random forests) are applied to multi-temporal C-band SAR data, from different study sites and years. A detailed accuracy assessment shows that classifier ensembles, in particularly random forests, outperform standard approaches like a single decision tree and a conventional maximum likelihood classifier by more than 10% independently from the site and year. They reach up to almost 84% of overall accuracy in rural areas with large plots. Visual interpretation confirms the statistical accuracy assessment and reveals that also typical random noise is considerably reduced. In addition the results demonstrate that random forests are less sensitive to the number of training samples and perform well even with only a small number. Random forests are computationally highly efficient and are hence considered very well suited for land cover classifications of future multifrequency and multitemporal stacks of SAR imagery.

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How to cite

APA:

Waske, B., & Braun, M. (2009). Classifier ensembles for land cover mapping with multi-spectral SAR imagery. Isprs Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 5, 450-457. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2009.01.003

MLA:

Waske, Björn, and Matthias Braun. "Classifier ensembles for land cover mapping with multi-spectral SAR imagery." Isprs Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 5 (2009): 450-457.

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