i The spatial resolution in terms of metres on the ground, ii The temporal resolution which is the frequency of the overpasses of the satellite, iii ‘The spectral resolution which relates to the number of spectral ranges sensed, ie., tie number of wavelength ‘bands’ of the spectrum or the ‘channels’ of the recording systems, in the terminology of remote sensing. Type of products ‘After pre-processing, two main products are offered; (1) Digital data on magnetic tape, floppy disc, small cassettes (NRSA, India) and probably shortly on other media such as CD ROM. The digital data is formatted in various ways, sequential bands, band interleaved, etc @ Photographic products resulting, from image processing of the digital data. Imagery >f individual bands may be ordered, usually the red band for the interpretation of land cover and the NIR band for water bodies and other features. False colour imagery has the advantage thatthe information of three bands is represented in a colour code on a single document at scales which may vary from 1:50,000 (TM, SPOT) to 1: 250,000 (Landsat MSS) or smaller scales. This product has the advantage that the information of three bands is represented in a colour code on a single 4.2. SPECTRAL RESPONSES Multispectral imaging is important because reflectance of the earth’s surface in the various parts ofthe spectrum depends, among other factors, on the nature of the surface, 4.2.1 Spectral reflectance In the reflectance domain, the reflected energy (Es) is equal to the energy incident (Ei) on a given surface reduced by the sum of the energy that is either absorbed (Ea) or transmitted (Et) by the object: Er = Ei - (Ea + Et) ‘The reflected energy is of direct interest for detecting, surface features or objects in remote sensing. The reflectance p, is defined as the proportion of the incident energy which is reflected. Er) Pa BIG) ‘A graph of the spectral reflectance (or radiance) as a function of wavelength is called the spectral reflectance curve, The set of radiances of a surface, as averaged over the various well-defined wavelengths is termed the “special signature’ = rod Vulsifscncikacopeeteeo am Pa cgencfrines Sonoran | iain eet aa cn dea! Cae (960 ad by a fa zeae S80 eis Siiebooraiencnns j ee ronal a= of the (Es) is surface bsorbed 2) a8 a ectance raged ned the 1, the 1 Main characteristics of the current imaging systems. SATELLITE OVERPASS SPECTRAL RESOLUTION GROUND FREQUENCY (am) RESOLUTION (m) (DSAT 1-3 MSS | 18 days 4 05-06 9 (bands 4 to 7) 060.7 6 0.7.08 2: LANDSAT 4-5 MSS | 16 days I: 2 (ands 1 (0 4) i LANDSAT 4-5 TM | 16 days kL 0.45-0.52 30 (bands 1 to 7) 2: 0.52-0.60 3: 0.63-0.69 4: 0,760.90 3: mill SSc1078 6 10.4-12.5, 120 7: 2.08-2.35 30 SPOT I and 2 Nadir 26 days; off 1 0.50.0.59 20 (HRV) Nadir 1,2 and 5 days | 2: 0,79-0.89 (bands 1 103 and | depending on the 3: 0.79-0.89 panchromatic) Latitude. Pan: 0.51-0.73 10 METEOSAT Geostationary vis: 04-11 + 5000 to 10000, (bands vis, wv, tir) wy: 05.0.8 tis 5.7-7.1 082 scanners are used) NOAA-AVHRR 68 | 12 hours 1 058-0.68 1100 at nadir and 10 2: 0.72-1.10 24006900 at 55,4° (bands 1 (0 5) 3: | 3,55-3.93 sean angle. 4: 10.5-11,50 S:___ Channel 4 repeats. NOAA-AVERR 7 | 12 hours I: 0.58-0.681: 1100 at nadir and 9 2 rai 10 2400*6900 at 55,4° (1105) aye ss) scan angle. 4: 10.5-11.50 5: 11.5-12.50 IRs 22 days 1: 0.45-0.52 36.25 or 72.50 Bands (1 t0 4) 2: 0.52-0.59 3: 0.62-0.68 4 0.77-0.86 aFigure 4.9____ Sketch ofa simple atmospheric model. where b total radiance reaching the sensor, i the actual radiance from the sun, sa is a factor accounting for the attenua- tion effect of the atmosphere on the energy reaching and reflecting from the object (Gependent on the angle between the sun - the line normal to the object and the angle line normal to the object - sensor at the satellite; ‘wavelength dependent), Sk = is a factor relating T with the diffuse energy reaching the object (skylight) (sun angle and wavelength dependent), R = _ is the reflectance property (albedo) of the object, and H is the radiance reaching the sensor directly from the atmosphere (haze. ‘The atmosphere contains many components (water vapour, aerosols, trace gases) which cause absorption and scatter in the path, sum-objectsensor, besides generating their own radiance through emission or absorption. Atmospheric effects vary with time and space. The haze is additional to the reflected radiance of | the features of interest in the instantaneous field of view (IFOY) of the sensor. 4 2 Imaging satellites ‘These satellites have near-polar orbits, i.e, the flight path, projected orthogonally on the earth, crosses the equator at a high angle. Satellite overpasses take place in the early part of the morning, local times, The imaging systems may differ in design. The ‘Thematic Mapper (TM) has a scan mirror which moves back and forth along the ground track, across the flight path. For the first six spectral bands there are 16 detectors aligned along track. Landsat MSS has only 6 detectors per band and 64 quantization levels (6 bit). ‘Thus the image is made up by consecutive ‘sweeps’ of a 16 arrays for Landsat MSS or scan lines in the case of ‘TM. The instantaneous field of view (IFOV) of a TM sensor corresponds to a ground resolution of 30 m for all common applications. Landsat MSS is oversampled, particularly along the scan line. A weighted average of 120 min the scan direction is recorded in intervals of 57 ‘m, resulting in smoothing. SPOT is equipped with ushbroom scanners, which have 6000 individual detectors each. In the panchromatic mode all of the {detectors are sampled, giving a ground resolution of 10 1m. In multispectral mode only one out of two detectors ‘sampled resulting in a resolution of 20 m. The sensors tan be pointed 27° either side of the flight path, enabling the acquisition of stereoscopic imagery. SPOT, TM and Landsat 4 & 5 use 256 quantization levels (8 bit). The Indian IRS satellite also uses a push broom, Scanner which utilizes the satellite along track motion in orbit to image the earth with a linear CCD array. The resent system (LISS 11) has a ground resolution of 36.25 m and uses 128 quantisation levels (7 bit) ‘Kasturirangan et al., 1991). More information on the systems can be found in Colwell (Manual of RS, 1983 and the forthcoming edition). Updated information is provided in the Landsat Data Users Notes (EOSAT), in the SPOT News and Interface", the news bulletin from NRSA Data Centre, india. 4.2.3 The image The system is designed in such a manner that the radiation arriving at the sensors is split into spectral ands or ‘channels’. The spectral bands and the approximate ground resolution of each pixel of the current imaging systems are shown in Table 4.1 and Figure 4,10. A scan line consists of an array of picture clements (pixels), each having a digital number (DN), also termed Digital Counts (DC), which results from the ‘quantisation of the amplified electronic signal generated by the sensor (detector. For many sensors, the DN or brighmess recorded by the sensor in each band isa simple linear relation of the radiance reaching the sensor. For each band, a binary umber is produced, usually in the range of 0-256, so that 8 bits can be used to store one band value. A set of pixels ofthe various bands can be considered 2s a coincident set of numerical arrays, a8 sketched in Figure 4.10, which shows the essentials of the procedures in the path, original tape to image. The figure illustrates that the DNS from the individual band values of a particular pixel form the components of a vector. Extensive use of this property is made in the ‘various applications of image processing and merging in GIs operations.Internally referenced spectral bands, |- arrays with digital numbers (ON) Ta 7 a anes Om, ON Ti Ta spectral response ‘display (map) with pels Figure 4.10 From satelite scanning to image display. Upper figure: data arrays resulting from scanning. Middle and lower left hand: spectral properties expressed as wavelength- dependent digital numbers (DNs) of two pixels (A and B). Middle and lower right hand: resultant vectors in feature space and display using grey tones (one band) or with additive colours (one to three bands), humbers and radiances jsumbers on the tapes containing the images are resulting as output of a complex system of (electronic devices. The output is a scaled L = Lmin + (Lmax ~ Lm, a DN Nima spectral radiance (Wem? st! jt!) digital number from the original tape, spectral radiance (same units as L) at ‘input, which, for all practical purposes, where: relationship (see Figure 4.11). i fof the radiance at sensor aperture (L) are. DN ‘gm. The conversion of DN’s to radiance = Lmin done if calibrated values for the gain and DN=0 Lmax spectral radiance (same units as L) at DN=DNmaxDNmex = The range of digital numbers from ginal tape data and, aie Po “costs where: f= —_ unless effective a-satlite planetary reflectance, L, = measured. spectral radiance from the TM sensor, d = ‘arth-sun distance (astronomical units), Ea, rmean solar exo-amospherie iraiance (mWem"ym') , and os solar zenith angle (degrees). Values for Esun, Lmin and Lmax for each band can bbe found in the Landsat data user's notices, e.8., Markham er al (1985); for Landsat MSS (19872); Hill et al (1991). For visual interpretation and for most classification applications it is not necessary to convert the data into absolute radiance units. A practical point is that often the field calibration data are not readily available, The approximate correction can be done in a simple fashion, using the data from the imagery only, as discussed below. ap Filan mule?) 6 10 : y ° 60 ~SCOSC« Digi! Court Values (OC) Figure 4.11 Calibration funetion relating radiance to digital count values. 4.2.5 Examples of relative spectral signatures ‘Typical spectral reflectance curves of some objects or surfaces of relevance to hydrologic studies are shown below. They are presented in a relative form (no units on the vertical axis) because of the effects of viewing conditions mentioned above, and possible effects of ‘moisture content and surface roughness. For vegetated 64 surfaces, besides moisture, the effects of wind have to be considered because of changes in the position of leaves (Lord et al., 1985). 4.2.5.1 Water Water reflectance is the sum of a specular component ‘and an intemal scattered component. The specular reflectance is perceived as ‘sunlight’ from the platform. Because of strong absorption in the middle infrared, the ‘magnitude of the scattered component is chiefly derived from the shorter wavelengths, particularly those in the visible range. ‘The infrared band(s) are eminently suited for mapping water bodies because of the absorption, near zero reflection, In Figure 4.12, a number of spectral reflectance curves of water bodies are shown (see also Hoffer, 1978). Curve W1 pertains to clear, deep ocean water, ‘The radiation is mainly due to scatter within the water (specular reflection not considered), causing a weak upwelling radiation. Transmittance is high and the reflectance depends on the chlorophyll content. Clear lake water is represented by curve W2. The relative high intensity in the part of the spectrum between 0.40 and 0.6 jum causes a blueish-green colour in nature. The red ‘wavelengths are partly absorbed and those beyond in the near infrared are fully absorbed. Shallow, clear water is shown by curve W3. The depth to which light can Penetrate depends on the wavelength, about 10 m in the 0.5 -0.6 um waveband and less than 10 cm in the 0.8- 1.1 ym range, Reflectance (%) os 05 08 o7 as G2 10 Wave length (um) vet lear oop Seson water —— 2 Staite Ye Se sh ae ‘a oh conoortrtonsuepende aa ‘aS mace creator spared ad We. iependesheany gee Wa fostng green wataion Figure 4.12 Possible reflectance curves of water bodies. Light penetration causes an upwelling radiationeto be leaves ponent ecular form, d, the erived in the pping ctance offer, water. water weak d the Clear = high 0 and ye red in the er is can in the ation ment due to bottom reflection. Water with a high and moderate suspended solid load represented by curve W4a and b respectively. The fering in the blue and green band causes an increase reflectance in relation to clear water. The brownish low colour of a high suspended load in rivers is due strong reflection in the red band. Water with “ssspended healthy algae containing chlorophyll is shown curve WS. A closed cover of floating green ion, such as water hyacinth, is represented by W6. The curve is typical of healthy green jon in the curves for shallow water ing on the nature of the bottom materials, the load and possibly phytoplankton. Therefore it difficult to use the penetration properties for the tion of water depths, without calibration data. 5.2. Suspended load Considerable research has been directed to using RS ‘fr analyzing the correlation between the concentration nature of the suspended load and the spectral ince as registered on the imagery (e.g., Ritchie et 1988). Many field surveys have been made at the “ime of satellite or aircraft overpasses, generally in lakes ‘and coastal areas. ‘The use of RS for suspended loads is hampered by a ‘zumber of circumstances: = Rivers carry most of their suspended load in the rainy ‘season, when the chance of obtaining cloud free imagery Js low, certainly in the tropics. The spatial resolution of ‘weather satellites with daly imaging is too low to be of ‘ese, except for the largest rivers. = Ifthe concentration of suspended particles is low (say, ‘50 or 100 ppm) the reflectivity is very sensitive to small ‘absolute changes in concentration, as has been emonstrated by the detailed experiments of Blanchard eal,, (1973) and Bartolucci et a, (1977). Their results “indicate that the spectral curves of are quite similar to each other, making it impossible to ‘se the spectral data for monitoring the loads when they are of real importance for the sediment yield This rapid colouration (i.e, reflectivity) at relatively Jow increases in suspended loads is a feature which may have been noticed by those engaged in sampling of suspended oats in iver ‘The relation between the DNs on the RS imagery and the concentration have to be determined empirically for each river or lake and it may vary in time, as the provenance of the sediment may not be stable within the catchment, - Imagery with high spatial resolution (20-80 m) for monitoring suspended load in rivers is expensive and it will provide momentary observations within a variable time series. ‘The effects of suspended load on the imagery can be fruitfully used if the spatial patterns related to the relative concentration are of interest. This is often the case for detecting the direction of flow of flood waters, the flow pattems at river junctions, assessing how far ‘turbid water is carried by tidal current and so on. 4.2.5.3 Soils, soil moisture Soil reflectance spectra exhibit in general a monotonic rise from 0.40 to 1.75 jum with a dip around 1.45 yam (Figure 4.13). Wave length (uM) yen — wetsand — etcey — ton Figure 413 Reflectance curves of two soils, wet and dry, Scattering and absorption by mineral and organic matter determine the spectral signature. For a given soil type, there are two additional factors, which vary in time. Firstly, the surface roughness inducing of shadow and light trapping effects, causing a lower reflectance for rough soil surfaces. Secondly, the surface moisture which results in a decrease in reflectance over the whole signature with increased moisture content (Figure 4.14). The azimuth angle between the sun and the sensor also has an influence; in a direction opposite to the sun the reflection is less because maximum shadowed parts are sensed, These temporal variations make it difficult in practice to use standard signatures e.g., for soil type X. In addition there is the difficulty of ascertaining thatthe soil is really bare. Although many factors influence the spectral properties of soils, it has been shown that there is a linear relationship between the reflectance in the red and. NIR pars of the spectrum of various soil types and their moisture content (Figure 4.14, from Belward, 1991), ‘This line is known as the soil line’, Deviations from soil line have been used as vegetation indices. 65‘6 rellecanoe, near etared Red and near infrared reflectance for loam, sand and clay soils at different moisture contents, The number in brackets are % moisture content. (after Belward, 1991) 4.2.5.4 Vegetation A typical spectral reflectance curve for healthy green broadleaves plants fully covering the ground is represented by the curve in Figure 4.15. ‘The low reflectance and transmittance in the visible range is caused by the strong absorption of chlorophyll pigment. The differences within this range determine the visual colour of the vegetation. Absorbtion effects are tess strong in the near infrared range (0.7 -1.30 um) and reflectance and transmittance are higher. Type of pigment, leaf water content, cell-structure, thickness of leaves and their orientation in the sun-sensor path influence the details of the spectral signature (Baret, 1991). i pees ‘eavelngth (um) Figure 4.15. Spectral vegetation. reflectance of green ‘The state of development of plants and trees through the seasons and within the season as a function of rainfall ‘and temperature is, of course, a source of variation in the development of the vegetation and thus of the 66 reflectance characteristics. To complicate matters, the soil background influences the reflectance when the ‘canopies do not fully cover the ground. 4.2.5.5 Discussion ‘The above examples indicate that it will be difficult to ‘use the spectral properties of the various surfaces in an absolute sense. In addition, there are the varying atmospheric and geometric conditions (sun angle, topography, satellite position) as well as the fact that ‘most land covers are not really homogeneous, as will be described when the so called mixed pixels are discussed, Most of the applications in the reflectivity domain therefore use the empirical determination of the teflectance as imaged and given in the form of DNs. 4.3 RADIOMETRIC CORRECTIONS, COLOUR CODING AND TRANSFORMATIONS. In this section, we look at a number of techniques: which could all be considered as pre-processing of the data before classification or segmentation are done, either by visual interpretation or by automatic classification, ‘A normal sequence in the pre-processing is first to Perform image restoration - if required - and then tadiometric corrections which, in this context, are limited to approximate correction for sensor effects and for atmospheric effects Geometric corrections, although part of the pre- Processing stage, are discussed in Chapter 3. It is sufficient to say here that radiometric corrections have to ve performed before the geometric transformation is done. The reason is that in the raw data there is direct ‘elation between the scan line of each sensor and its Position in the sensor array. After geometric correction, this relationship is altered or lost. 4.3.1 Corrections for device output Dropped lines Missing data of a row of pixels may occur with systems using moving scanners. Averaged values of the neighbours from the immediate upper and lower scan Tine are used as an estimate. Sensor correction ‘The sensors for a certain band should, by design, have, identical performance, but as with most complex instruments, there may be variation. Malfunctioning of sensor arrays causes a variance in te spectral data which does not correspond with the ground properties. It can be detected visually bythe image for striping. This is caused by ic lower or higher DNs of scan lines, due to in offset and gain. If present, it should be |. There are several ways of correction. For information, see Mather (1987): and gain correction using calibration data step wedge), which has to be known from the A lookup table (LUT) is prepared to convert ata. ic correction using the spectral data of the that z, by determining the mean (x) and standard rill be gation (s) for each sensor (k) and each band. The assed. ‘with the highest s is selected as the reference omain ©. f the DN = (DN', - x) +S, / S) +x, Ns. DN’ is the integer value from the original, raw OUR Generally, Gaussian distributions are assumed, which ‘not be present along a scan line. Furthermore, the ques deviation is sensitive to outlier. 9f the Correction by using a histogram matching technique. done, method is based on the shape of the cumulative matic gram of each sensor to find a non-linear estimate of transfer function. st to ‘The histograms per band and per sensor are calculated. then the means, standard deviations and cumulative , are grams. The standard deviation is determined only s and the selection of the reference sensor. The range may be taken, with cut-offs at 1% and 99%. The shape pre- ‘of the cumulative histogram of the reference sensor It is scribes the transfer function, as is shown in Figure veto 4.16. mn is rect d its et tion, ay | with mm Se eae the keener Pattee scan Histogram matching technique using the cumulative histograms of two sensors. The histogram of the left hand ign, cone (f) is used for correction of the plex right hand one (K), e in the ‘The actual transformation is performed by compiling by a LUT based on the comparison of the histogram of sensor k’((o one to be corrected) with the histogram of the reference sensor (1). The result yields corrected values (Kk). The advantage of the method is that no statistical assumptions have to be made. It may be noted that a correction for offset and gain is achieved in this ‘way, but not necessarily in a linear manner. ~ Fourier transformation Because of the evident periodicity in the striping due to the fixed sensor arrays, a Fourier transform allows for the separation of the periodic from the non-periodic functions. If the image processing software offers a choice, the histogram matching may be selected. It is effective and simple. 4.3.2. Approximate atmospheric corrections ‘The methods are designed to neutralize the effects of sensor and of viewing conditions, i.e., atmospheric degradation and illumination effects. The simple atmospheric model given earlier is used, see Figure 4.9. 4.3.2.1 Haze comection The DN from areas with zero reflectance are considered. Such areas correspond to deep shadows. behind ctiffs and cloud shadows. The DN from such pixels contain the additive part of the skylight effect. If there are deep shadows in the scene, the lowest value of the histogram of each band may be noted (.g., DN=25 of band r, Figure 4.16) and this value is subtracted from the data set, In effect, the histogram is shifted to the origin, A few outlier may be ignored by putting them in the lowest histogram class witha interval of one integer value. Because of absorption of the NIR wavelengths in water, water surfaces can also be chosen for the haze correction of that band. It is important to apply haze correction before any other transformation, e.g., the normalized difference ‘vegetation index (NDVD). 4.3.2.2 Atmospheric corrections for multitemporal ‘comparison ‘The spectral contents of the scene illumination will change with the path-length through the atmosphere (sun = object- satellite) and with atmospheric conditions. As scene illumination is a multiplicative factor, the correction must also be multiplicative per spectral band (Mulder, 1988) ‘The path-length can be determined from the data supplied, but the atmospheric attenuations are unknown. For an approximate elimination of the atmospheric 67effects on the DNs of two scenes at different dates, a comparison is made between the DNs from ground features which are supposed to have little spectral variation in time, Such features ate flat concrete surfaces of sufficient size (runways), areas with contiguous low rooftops and pavements, truly bare (no lichens) and flat smooth rock outcrops. Sometimes bare sands (windblown, sands, dry beach sands, dry sand) or large gravel bars in ‘ephemeral rivers are taken, Before making the above mentioned comparison the records of the rainfall preceding the overpass should be consulted to ensure similar low moisture contents. Such features are known as PIFS: pseudo (spectrally) in- variant features. Their DNs serve as the reference reflectance (REF). ‘The data set of a band (DN) imaged at time (t1) is corrected in a relative sense, by using the REF DNs of both images at fy and t, REF y REF, DN = DN’, * where DN is the corrected set. PIF- histogram method ‘The method, described by Schott et al.,(1988), employs the histograms of pseudo-invariant features and therefore a sufficiently large number of "PIF pixels’ has to be sampled, ‘The method is essentially a histogram matching technique. With some simplifying assumptions, for each band the problem is reduced to: put = 24 py2 + pv 21 pwm2 32 2 where the DNs of date 2 (DN2) are transformed to equivalent date 1 DNs, with o1 and o2 as the standard deviations of the PIF histograms of the respective dates and DNmi and DNm2 as the means of the two histograms. We compare two matching methods, a linear transform (see colour coding, below) and the standard technique for histogram matching. There is litle difference between the results of the two methods. The linear transform derived from the sample set are used to transform the full image, to make it compatible with the reference image. Within-scene differences ‘Scenes imaged during unstable atmospheric conditions cause variations in the DNs of ground objects with identical spectral properties and this may affect classification results. ‘When there are a few clouds scattered over the image, 68 correction may be made by noting the DNs of uniform ground objects, on either side of the cloud shadow, as described by Piech and Walker (1974). The method is limited to the higher resotution satellites, to minimize the risks of non-homogeneity of the selected ground covers. ‘The discussion below of the mixed pixels will clarify this point. In any case, one is left with the problem of interpolation to estimate those parts without clouds. 4.3.2.3 Discussion, atmospheric corrections “Maltitemporal studies or the use of multisystem data, sets require a normalization of the radiance values to a standard set of conditions. Often absolute target reflectance characteristics are determined, but apart from radiometric instrument calibration, this approach requires an atmospheric model and a target reflectance model (e.g., Duggin et al., 1985; Verhoef 1985; Slater et al., 1978; Elachi 1987; Hill et al., 1991; Epema 1992). For most of the day-to-day hydrologic applications, however, original data with minor corrections can be ‘used. ‘The justification for not bothering with the complex correction procedures is that the transfer functions between the spectral classes. representing ground features and the desired hydrologic variables are cartied out by empirical methods, as will be discussed. To a certain extent, the intra-image atmospheric effects can be circumvented by spectral sampling and classification of parts of the image. One hopes that the effects are less disturbing within smaller parts of the image than within the full scene. In the case of multitemporal imagery, cover classifications of each date may be made separately and the results related to each other by GIS operations. For example, the areas of surfaces evaporating at high rates (water, green vegetation) and those with lower actual evaporation rates (such as rock outcrops, areas with poor vegetation) may be classified. Their location and extent (number of pixels) are known on the various dates Gastellu-Etchegory (1993) describes this mono-date approach for mapping the forest types and the deforestation process in Sumatra. By doing s0, however, one cannot make use of the shifts in the feature spaces of combined temporal data, which may provide more ‘elegant’ solutions to achieve a very similar result, 4.3.3 Colour coding ‘The visualization of the processed remote sensing, products forms an essential link in spatial feature extraction and is used for judging errors in classification procedures. However, the human eye can .guish only athis m of n data stoa yment nodel tal, 1987; fons, an be 1 the nsfer nting eric f the sing ture tion Nactpoes Noo pias A. No contrast enhancement 1 Unoar contrast atotch Figure 4.17 ‘Stretching. Upper figure: Histogram of DNS, given as input raw data. Lower figure: Data spread out (stretched) over full output range of display medium. limited number of shades of grey, and colours are therefore used. Moreover, it may useful to maintain some association between the colours of objects in the terrain and on the image display. 4.3.3.1. Linear colour coding Linear colour coding defines a relation between the input values, i.e., the ordinal DNs, and the intensities of the output medium, the CRT screen or plotter. The objective is to improve the visual qualities of the imagery. Stretching ‘A linear transfer function is used to make full use of the 256 output values. The histogram of a scene Figure 4.17 will make use of a part of the output display levels. By stretching the histogram, i.e., spacing the bins, the full range of 256 output display levels can be used. Only a part of the total output range is used, and the mage will look greyish with little contrast. The linear ‘transform expands the data to the full output range. To neutralize the effect of outlier, the histogram is stretched between, say, 1% and 99% of the input values. ‘A vatiation is the piece-wise linear stretch. The principle of a piece-wise linear stretch is shown in Figure 4.18. The bimodality of the histogram is due to the low DNs of the woody savanna in the lower part of the image and the higher DN’s of the sparsely vegetated Tcustrine deposits in the upper part. A better visual discrimination of these areas of interest is obtained by piecewise stretching. More information is now revealed in both the woody savanna and the lacustrine deposits. However, this is achieved at the expense of a reduction in contrast in the other areas (e.g. the central and the upper left part of the image). ‘Another common linear transform, is the histogram ‘equalization, which partitions the histogram into classes which, because of integers, have an approximately equal number of pixels. This operation obscures the contrast in the high and low ranges, but improves it in the middle range. It is most useful when the output display (printers or plotters) is limited to a few levels. 4.3.3.2 Colour, red-green-blue, hue-saturation-intensity ‘The screens of the image processing systems are bombarded with electrons by the blue, green and red "guns’ of the CRT (cathode ray tube). The blue, green and red phosphors are activated and they emit photons in ‘one of the primary colours. We perceive colours because the receptors of the human eye sensitive to the three primary colours and their additive colour mixtures. The three primary colours, blue, green and red correspond to 0,460, 0.530 and 0.650 yum. ‘The term ’saturation’ refers to the energy distribution of a single wavelength, monochromatic, light. Grey could be considered as a neutral colour with zero saturation. When the energy distribution of a red ‘phosphor is combined with that of a green phosphor, the resulting *hue’ of the mixture will be yellow. Hue is a psychological variable responsible for the colour sensation. Pure hue equals saturation. Increasing the amount - or intensity - of red while decreasing the amount of green would shift the colour to orange. Increasing the intensity of green at the expense of red ©Original image Piece wise linear stretch Stretched (+ - 1%) i 3 pad 7 Colour value Number of pixels i 7 ote Digital number Figure 4.18 Effect of stretching. black blue Figure 4.198 70 ‘The additive colour system, Figure 4.19 The subtractive colour system,Yellow Figure 4.20 Colour cube. Green, red and blue may be assigned to bands of the green-red band ‘wavelengths, the near infrared wavelengths and the blue-green wavelengths respectively. The axis from black to white is the intensity axis and orthogonal to this isthe ‘colour triangle” with two axes MI and NI shown. ‘would alter the colour to a yellow-green, and so on. For ‘more information on colour theory, see Durrett (1987). CRT screens or colour photographic emulsions use the ‘additive colour scheme, shown in Figure 4.198. The colour printers using ink, are based on the subtractive colour scheme, Figure 4.19b. The pigments ‘or dyes of the ink absorb some wavelengths and reflect ‘others. By mixing yellow and eyan, green is produced because the yellow pigment absorbs all wavelengths shorter than 0.50 nm (evoking the sensation of blue) and the cyan pigment absorbs all of the long wavelengths (20.550 um, evoking yellow). What is left over is the range of 0.500 to 0,550 ym which causes the sensation of green. The RGB colour scheme for display on the CRT screen can be thought of as a three-dimensional ‘orthogonal system, if the colours are considered to be independent of each other (Mulder, 1982). If the ‘maximum intensities defined for each colour are equal, all possible colours are contained in the ‘colour cube’ shown in Figure 4.20. At the origin all intensities are zero and the colour is black. A white colour results at ‘equal maximum intensities of all three primary colours, and thus the diagonal is the intensity axis. The RGB Scheme may be considered as colours located on planes orthogonally to the intensity axis (1). Two possible Intersections of the intensity axis are shown in Figure 4.20 where the RGB colour triangle is represented with ‘maximum intensities (MAX) of red, green and blue ‘Two new axes (MI and M2) are shown in the RGB plane. By using the three sides of the cube, the intensity and saturation will vary as the colours pass through the hues from green, red, blue and back to green, For the sake of improving the visual interpretability, one may decide to keep the intensity and saturation constant and. vary only the hue. Thus, the hues would be described by a circle and the transfer function relating the intensity per colour as a function of hue should have a sine form (Gee Figure 4.21), However, itis difficult ro prepare a look-up table to achieve this. The orthogonal plane a little further on the intensity axis results in a hexagonal pattern, which approaches a circle, Thus the sines are replaced by a linear approximation, as used in a piece- wise linear transfer function. With a little modification, the application of tis transfer function has been used for colour coding a single image, as shown in Figure 4.24c. ‘The IHS scheme defines the colours by two orthogonal ‘axes, intensity (J and saturation (S) and an angle for hue (H), (sce Figure 4.22). I, Hand S are identical to conical coordinates in the colour cube. The three dimensions are also referred to as “brightness'(D), colour purity (S) and colour (H). One can perform transformations from the RGB scheme to the IHS scheme and visa versa. The advantage of the RGB system is that it is easy to retrieve the *meaning’ of a colour from the original DNs, by the colour cube. The advantage of the IHS system is that simple linear distances can be used for defining hue and nintensity per colour hue Circle on colour triangle desctibes constant intensity of additive primary colours (red-+green+biue). The graph shows the intensity variation of each primary colour as a function of hue. in Ho Hie Figure 4.22 ‘The THS colour system. 1 and S are vectors, H is an angle. saturation. Colour coding of a single image ‘The reason for using colour transfer functions is that the human eye cannot differentiate many intensity classes when presented in irregular patterns, formed by the pixels on the image. Thus, by using a black and white image, only a few shades of grey (from black to ‘white)can be discemed, which are a poor representation of the richer nature of the information available, i.e., the range of the DNs. The human eye proves to be a poorly calibrated densitometer. Because of the importance of ‘vegetation in hydrological studies, it can be important to analyze the vegetation patterns, as shown for example on an NDVI image of a small part of a catchment in south ‘Sumatra, but using different transfer functions (LUTS). ‘The NDVI combines the spectral data from two bands into a single new band (i.e., a data set of DNs) and the result should be associated with some index of vegetation density, as will be explained in a later section. Figure 4.23a shows the (NDVI) image using a linear transform (by way of a LUT) with grey tone classes n from black (bare soil to white (dense green vegetation). One could consider this as a fair’ representation of linear NDVI classes, but infact there is no simple linear relationship between vegetation density and the NDVI values, which tend to saturate for higher vegetation “densities. Figure 4.23b shows the same area, but an exponential transform - a LUT with 6 equal intervals - has been used (For reasons explained in the section below discussing the NDVI). This shows more detail in the high range of NDVI values atthe expense of those in the low range. The effect is pronounced because of the histogram properties Plate 4.3a shows the effect of the digital approximation of the sine functions, with some adjustment to avoid a situation in which the lowest and highest NDVI values have almost the same colour. Three new images are created, by partitioning the data set according to the thee transfer functions. The three images are joined by using the three primary colours. Because most ofthe pixels happen to be in the range of the ‘red transfer function’, the red colours dominate. This effect can be eliminated, if $0 desired, by using triangular transfer functions for approximately equal parts ofthe histogram. The result is shown in Plate 4.36. This image shows the best detail {for location which is quite essential if the NDVI values are related to the true situation on the ground. Colour coding of three input bands, FCC The standard false colour composite (FCC) is produced when the DNs of three bands are colour coded, e.g., the blue-green band of TM or the green band of ‘SPOT or Landsat MSS) with the blue gun of the CRT, the red band with the green gun and the near infrared band with the red gun. The term false’ originates from the application of the so-called camouflage detection film, used by the military, where the emulsion layer for red of the film was sensitive to the lower extreme of theHistogram ofthe NDVI image Exponential transfor function Histogram ofthe exponential imago Exponential ransfr function Figure 4.23, coding. NIR. Thus green vegetation with high brightness in this range obtained a red colour, in contrast to the green paint used for vehicles On the false colour composite the water will appear blueish, the green vegetation reddish and the bare soil in shades of brown and grey, following the additive colour scheme and the typical spectral signatures. Colour enhancement is possible by making use of the Properties that the saturation increases from zero in the neutral grey point in the centre of the cube to a maximum at the border of the colour triangle as defined by the primary colours. When three spectral bands are normalized (see the section on NDVI) the spectral data is mapped onto a plane orthogonal to the intensity diagonal, ic., the friangle shown in Figure 4.24, with constant intensity. The spectral data set of a scene forms a certain pattern ‘on the normalized colour triangle, generally occupying the central parts. The typical reflectance of water (W), soils ($) and vegetation (V) are indicated. In effect, an image (in grey tones) of the normalized spectral data is ‘Normalized difference vegetation index image, displayed using different transfer functions for colour equivalent to a hue and saturation image. There is no effect of intensity variations, hence illumination differences due to topography have been eliminated by the normalization. The image containing the intensity data displays effects of topography and differences in total brightness ofthe land use covers, but not the colour information. Colour manipulation and enhancement can be done by changing the colour balance (a shift), saturating the colours (by scaling) and changing the hue (by rotation). Use is made of two new coordinates defining the triangle. After manipulation and transposing the data back and adding the intensity set, the so-called saturation enhanced FCCs are made, Mulder (1988) describes the procedures. and the numerical implementation by matrix transformations. He also demonstrates that the decomposition into intensity variation and. ‘spectral colour’ variation can be used meaningfully for feature extraction, Rotational transformation allows one to have another look at the spectral data without using statistics. B| B ue pestomston ‘cn eg Figure 4.24 Colour enhancement by affine transform in the normalized colour triangle. 4.3.3.3 Multitemporal data compression by colour coding A very effective manner for noting changes in the {features at different time intervals can be brought about by using cach of the three colours for each of three scenes of different dates, ‘Two examples are given. The first one uses band 7 (NIR) of Landsat MSS of three different years to map a deforestation process, and the second uses NDVI of three different seasons in a wetland environment. Monitoring of deforestation The removal of primary rainforest has led to increased ‘bed loads of a river in South Sumatra. The deforestation process since 1973 can be displayed on a single image by assigning blue, green and red to the infrared bands of Landsat MSS of 1973, 1984 and 1986 respectively, after accurate geometric registration and stretching (Plate 4.4), ‘The contiguous yellowish areas were deforested during 1973-1986 and the reddish areas between 1984 and 1986, The blue tones correspond to clouds in 1973, The criterion of contiguity of area must be applied to discriminate between the shifting cultivation or erop rotations and the permanently deforested areas. The non- disturbed primary forest has a brownish hue, corresponding to only moderate reflectivity in the NIR band, in contrast to other vegetated areas, which show 4 up in hues not far from the intensity axis. ‘Seasonal changes in a marsh environment Plate 4.5 shows a colour composite of NDVI imagery of three periods taken in January, May and October, ‘with colours as indicated, from a small area along the ‘margin of the Sudd marshes in Sudan, The area can be divided into marsh area and upland area. The reddish hhues in the upland area are related to the seasonal green vegetation in October and the blueish colours to green vegetation in January occurring at lower topographic positions and at the transition zone between the upland and the marsh area. In the upland, the absence of saturated colours, except red in some places, indicates that green vegetation is not restricted to a short period. ‘The red tones (.e., no blue and green) are influenced by ‘burning of the grass in the first part of the year. The wet low-lying areas are not affected by burning. ‘The seasonal changes in the marshes can be easily deducted from the colours: black = Permanent water (in the backswamps ‘and open rivers), white Permanent green vegetation, often on. drowned levees and as floating vegetation, green = only vegetation during May, water during the other two months, yellow - water in January, vegetation in May and October, magenta- vegetation in October and January, water in May. ‘This example shows an effective way of compressing the information contained in 6 original images (3 dates, 2 bands each) into a single image. 4.3.4 Some other common transformations Sum Adding bands and dividing by the number of added bands (N) to preserve the output interval [0 - 255] ‘amounts to averaging, with the consequent loss of information but with the advantage of reducing the random noise of the input data, By adding bands the intensity information is obtained, also termed total brightness, A special case is the addition of bands to be used for normalization, e,agery jober, 3g the an be dish green green, phic pland ce of jcates riod, ed by je wet easily non ating water vary, ssing lates, B, 5 oo ae @ +5)’ @ +5) AAs is shown in Figure 4.27 (see section on NDVI), the spectral data vectors are mapped onto a line if two Bands are used and onto a plane when three normalized Dands are used (see section of colour coding). Subtraction: Diff = (Bi ~ BY + 127 Band subtraction is used to produce the spectral differences between relevant ground objects, such as the differences between the reflectance of vegetated surfaces ‘and of non-vegetated objects - bare soil, water, etc. ~ from the NIR band and the green band. By adding an offset factor 127, the negative values ate avoided. Subtraction to study the real differences of spectral reflectance of objects on various bands or in time, requires radiometric corrections. Rationing: ‘The compensation factor (90) is required to expand the data display. The best use of rationing is the sum normalization to produce intensity independent data, 2s discussed above. Haze correction (see below) should be done before the normalization. An example of rationing. fora simple but effective classification for a mountainous terrain is discussed in the section on classifications. Rationing is often used in image processing in atrial and error fashion, Physically it has no meaning. Certain ground objects may show up after rationing, often in areas with sparse vegetation and varying lithology and soils. Examples can be found in Sabins (1986) among others. By rationing, the data vectors are mapped onto a hyperbola f(y) = 1/x, illustrated in Figure 4.25, resulting ina stretching of the tail ends, at the expense of the bulk of the information in the central part. The DNs occurring in the tailends do not figure prominently on imagery, unless the tail-ends are stretched. 4.3.4.2 Principal components transform This transform, also known as the Karhunen-Loeve (KL) transform (Loeve, 1955), calculates new orthogonal axes, the eigen vectors, based on the covariance matrix of a sample set. ‘The eigen vectors - principal components (PCs) - are ey Figure 425 Effect of _ ration ‘vectors are mapped into hyperbola. ordered according to the variance they contain. The loadings on the eigen vectors represent the contributions of each input band to the eigen value. The number of principal components equals the number of input bands, ‘The first PC is defined by the maximum variance of the original data set, The last PC defines the leftover variance, For this reason, the PC transform is generally used as a data compression technique reducing the multi- dimensionality of the input bands into two ot three new bands (PC II, II) suitable for colour coding to produce imagery for spatial feature extraction. ‘The orthogonal decomposition of the spectral information is shown in Figure 4.26, where the PC I and the PC II images are complementary (IRS data, India). The infrared band of IRS of the area is shown in Figure 4 ‘The lower order PCs (PC IIl and PC IV when the four Landsat MSS bands are used) may contain less than I % of the variance, The images of such PCs generally display pure noise patterns and may be discarded, Occasionally, specific features may appear on the low order, PC imagery. ‘The PC transform has been compared with a "blind procedure’, which could be replaced by other orthogonal decomposition, whereby the axes are defined by some particular features (Jackson 1983, Donker et al, 1976). Generally a random, and thus unknown, sample set is taken over the full scene from which the transformation parameters are determined. It may be advantageous to base the transform on a sample set of spectrally sampled objects of interest, as described by Donker et al., (4977). To do so, the rotation of the new coordinate system (the eigen vectors) can be included, for enhancement of features inthe display but still leaves the above criticism. 15‘Orthogonal decomposition of four bands (IRS LISI) using principal components (PC) transformation. The images of the PCI (above) and PCT (below) are shown, 4.3.4.3. Tasselled cap transform Continuing on earlier work, Crist et al., (1984) advocate a transformation of the data of six bands of ‘TM by using weights in the form of multiplication factors. According to the authors, the six band TM data are dispersed into a three-dimensional space formed by two orthogonal planes and a transition zone. Fully vegetated areas define the plane of vegetation termed ‘greenness’. Areas with bare soils define the “brightness’, leaving a third transitional component. The rounded off tassel cap coefficients for each of six ‘TM bands are given in Table 4.2. This transform offers 4 data compression from six to three bands, and these new bands can be used for supervised classification using sampling sets (ee below). The name is derived from the shape of the data sets on plots of “brightness’ and ‘greenness’ values. The “greenness” has been found to be associated with measures for the vegetation density 1 may be noted that a similar shape is obtained when sample sets of water, soil and vegetation ae plotted on 4 plane formed after normalization of the green, the red and the near infrared bands, e.g., Figure 4.24, From tis Mulder (1988) developed the so-called ‘characteristic vectors’. One problem with the tasselled cap transform is that there is no normalization for intensity effects. For some areas it ean be shown that colour composites made with PC transform are very similar to those made with the tasselled cap transform. 4.3.44 Vegetation index Vegetation indices (VI) in remote sensing are combinations of reflectance of two or more bands, usually in the visible red band and the near infrared band. However, vegetation is a rather complex phenomenon because of highly varying canopy structures, density variations and leaf properties and phenological changes in time. Therefore no close a-priori association can be expected between the spectrally based Vis and the true biomass or leaf area indices (LAD as determined on the ground. Applications are limited by the difficulty in reliably assessing the canopy characteristics from remote sensi data Baret 1991), particularly when the remote sensing. is limited to the reflectivity domain, Synergism with imaging radar improves matters, because the radar data yields information on the structure of the vegetation, albeit in an ambiguous way. ‘Vegetation has an important effect on water budgets because of evapotranspiration losses and rainfall-runoff ‘Table 4.2. ‘Tasselled cap coefficients for TM sensor Character TMA 2 3 4 3 7 Brightness 0.332 0331 |o.ss2 | 0.425 0.481 | 0.252 Greenness 0.247 | 0.163 | -0.406 | 0.855 0.055 | 0.117 0.139 0.225 |0.4o4 | 0.252 -0.701_ | 0.457 16Near infrared (NIR) Feed (A) o 02 04 08 RI(R+ NIA) ost vegetated areas, onses. It can be argued that there is lite alternative use the approximate classifications and mapping in eflectivity domain ifthe vegetation is to be included hydrologic analysis of larger areas, considering serial photography is rapidly outdated in many areas that the interpretation and quantization is time ing. A comprehensive review on the background, tion, characteristics and use of NOAA NDVI data ime integrated imagery for vegetation related studies een presented by Juste al. (1986). The mn response to rainfall can’ be followed hou the year and this information can be merged ‘other data, such as maps with interpolated potential oration (or temperature), geology, soils and graphy. ‘most commonly vegetation lized difference vegetation inde index isthe —sSsASOBRARRE WB! pvr = air = Rred) (Rair + Rred) R is the reflectance, (DN) after haze correction, red band and the near infrared band. index was developed by Rouse et al., (1974) the Landsat bands 7 and 5, while Townshend and er (1981) exchanged them for the similar AVHRR els 2 and 1. The NDVI is a bounded ratio ranging (A) Feature space of red band and infrared band: V,, V;, V5 = Vegetation; S,, §, water. (B) Transformation to NDVI values and exponential LUT for display on screen, at stretching soils; W = in value from -I to +1. From some typical spectral signatures of ground objects, shown earlier, the effects of the difference over the total can be readily noted. Clouds, water, bare soil and low green vegetation density and "senescent vegetation are associated with negative or low values Higher values relate to photosynthetically active cover such that, by inference, the higher the value the greater the phytomass (Tucker ef al., 1985). Holben (1986) calculated the average NDVI values from AVHRR channel 1 and 2 for a range of different covers types and. these are shown in Table 4.3. The NDVI is a ‘slope ‘vegetation index’, because of the ratio ofthe bands over the total. This has the advantage of removing the multiplicative effects of the irradiance conditions (intensity), as discussed earlier. The haze correction should be applied to the bands first to remove the additive term, In fact the normalization (dividing each band by the sum of the two bands) maps the data onto a line, ie., the new NDVI band, as is shown in Figure 4.27, The NDV1is te scalar data contained between the maximum difference and the minimum difference of DNs of individual pixels ofthe two bands. The samples used in the schematic figure represent pixels with the maximum difference of the DNs in the NIR and the red band. Vegetation (V,) represents aTable 4.3 NDVI values for different cover types as measured from NOAA-T (Holben 1986). Planetary albedo ] Cover type Channel 1 Channel 2 NDVI Dense green-leaf vegetation 0.050 0.150 0.500 Medium green-leaf vegetation 0.080 0.110 0.140 Light green-leaf vegetation 0.100 0.120 0.090 Bare soil 0.269 0.283 0.025 Clouds (opaque) 0.227 0.228 0,002 Snow and ice 0.375 0342 0.046 Water 0.022 0.013 257 al" green cover with fully closed canopy with more than one layer of leaves in a horizontal position and V, a ant = 149 ~ (NR= red) , 995) « 350 vegetation with a lower leaf area index. The vegetation (V,) has leaves which are strongly inclined and there is a litle soil background effect. An open water surface is represented by W. There are two bare soils S, and S,, hhave different colours and intensities (e.g., 2 moist heavy textured soil and dry quartz. sands). The effect of the normalization shows the elimination of the intensity component which is very evident in the DNs of the two soils. Image display As is shown in Figure 4.27, only a small upper part of the NDVI range is related to characteristics of the ‘vegetation. For making a display of the image (NDVI-D), this upper part should be stretched through a piecewise linear transfer function as shown in Figure 4,27B. For the sake of standardization an exponential function may be adopted: C, NDVI NDVy = C, ~ Where C; represents the number of steps, e.g., 8. Then C, = 2 because 2° = 256 and 256-1 = 255, the ‘maximum number of display levels On a grey scale it is usual to assign low NDVI values to black tones and high NDVI to white For the standard NOAA global NDVI image product, the GVI is scaled: and this inverts the assignment to the grey scale, the darkest tones correspond to highest NDVI as was also used for Figure 4.1. 8B (WIR ~ red) Leaf area indices and vegetation As a field index for the vegetation the leaf area index (LAD is widely used. This index measures the total leaf ‘ea development controlling most of the physiological ‘aad energy budget processes (e.g., transpiration). The index is defined as the leaf area (one side) per unit ‘ground area, It varies from 0 for bare soil, to around 3 to 8 for annual crops and 15 or more for dense evergreen forests, In order to relate satellite derived VI’s to the LAL, the spectral response of the LAI has been investigated. Baret (1991) presented a semi-empirical model relating spectral reflectance to LAI, illustrated in Figure 4.28. et 700m) igure 4.28 Red and near infrared reflectance as a function of LAI (after Baret, 1991). AL , the soil background determines theindex Leaf ical unit nd 3 lense , the Baret ctral reflectance. In the red domain, soil reflectance is ‘generally higher than the leaf reflectance, and reaches a Timit, termed the “infinite reflectance’ at LAI of about 2 in the model, Leaf transmittance in the red band is very ‘weak, so that almost no radiation penetrates inside the ‘canopy afier interception by the uppermost leaf layers. ‘The canopy covers the soil fully at LAI=3. In the NIR domain, the transmittance level is high and multiple leaf layers are required before full extinction of an incident bbeam. Multiple scattering takes place, explaining the high infinite reflectance. The leaf angle distribution of the canopy influences the reflectance, as well as the effect of the sun’s position in relation to the canopy structure. In both cases the effects are strongest in the NIR. The irradiance geometry and the soil background ‘complicate the relationships between the reflectance and the canopy parameters. ‘The general form of the relationship between NDVI and LAI is shown in Figure 4.29, from which the Saturation response at high green leaf densities can be noted. Figure 4.29 General form of the relationship between leaf and index and NDVI (simplified from Baret, 1989), ‘The soil background effect is illustrated in the feature space of Figure 4.30 for red and infrared channels of the hhigh resolution SPOT image of October 1986 around Segou, Mali, prepared by Bartholomé (1989). ‘The cover classes have been determined independently. For high NDVI values all vegetation types are mixed, while for low NDVI values the differentiation is mainly due to soil background properties (Bartholomé 1991). Such observations indicate restrictions on the use of the NDVI in mapping certain hydrologic vegetation parameters. Other vegetation indices Distance vegetation indices make use of vector distances in the spectral feature space to differentiate ‘vegetation ‘density’. In the original form a principal Se er er) Coserved welecis aousig tothe sol backround % vegetiton ondanp sole o ode 4 eta enedsols cassava © vegtstonen grey sols charts 3 vepetstonansioust NOMI sine Figure 4.30 Feature space of the red (XS2) and near-infrared band of SPOT, showing various cover types and lines of equal NDVI values (after Bartholomé, 1991). component transform was used. Mulder (1988) describes the determination of the normalized green vegetation index (comparable to the NDVI) on the plane orthogonal to the intensity axis (the triangle of Figures 4.20 and 4.24). ‘The soil line shown in the feature space of Figure 4.14 represents bare conditions and the presence of vegetation causes a deviation from this line. The perpendicular ‘vegetation index is based on the distance to the soil line. ‘These and other indices, such as the TSAVI, are discussed by Baret (1991). Vegetation indices which take into account the soil influence have been proposed, such as the perpendicular vegetation index of Richardson and Wiegand (1977), the greenness vegetation index and Soil Brightness Index of Kauth and Thomas (1976). It is necessary to establish the soil line, explained above, for the conditions during the recording, and the proportion of bare soil of a pixel Time integrated NDVIs The effect of variable viewing conditions, including, geometry and atmosphere, off-nadir and atmospheric ‘aerosol content, reduce NDVI values (Holben and Fraser 1984). AVHRR has a swath width of more than 2700 km causing considerable variation along the scan-line in the sun-target-sensor geometry. For this reason, a technique known as the maximum value composites (MVCs) has been developed. This minimizes the viewing geometry effects and the cloud contamination. MVCs of short 9periods (7 or 30 days) are made based on daily NDVIs (Justice et al., 1986). For each location the pixel with the highest NDVI is preserved. The maximum values tend to be near-nadir pixels, imaged during the clearest atmosphere. Etfects of thin clouds persist. Holben (1986) discusses the method. ‘The accumulated decade rainfall in the drier areas has been used as a predictor of the NDVI at regional scales, and the reverse procedure allows, in retrospect, a ‘densification ofthe spatial rainfall (e.g., Hellden, 1988) Discussion of NDVI and hydrology The theoretical model of Monteith (1972), which has been widely accepted, relates phytomass production to the part of the solar radiation activating photosynthesis (PAR) in Joules, the part which is absorbed by the vegetation (APAR) in %, and an efficiency component. ‘The Vis have been related both theoretically and empirically to the amount of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (Bartholomé, 1991). Since phytomass production depends on the water uptake, the NDVI values can be related to the evapotranspiration losses. However, the water uptake depends on the behaviour of the soil moisture. Phytomass also depends on the radiation and soil nutrients and, in cultivated areas, on the farming practices. In addition, there is the problem of the soil background effect on low LAIs during the periods when green canopies do not exist or do not fully cover the soil, while for areas with dense vegetation the saturation of the NDVI for high LAIs causes complications The prime interest for hydrology lies with the meteorological satellites because of their frequent ‘overpasses and the relatively low cost of the imagery However, the spatial resolution causes important problems: a. The larger the pixel size, the more difficult it to determine the soil background and vegetation type. b. Itis difficult to georeference the pixels with an accuracy of 1 or 2 pixels, chiefly because no ground control points can be precisely located. Therefore, only very large ground control sites with homogeneous soil and vegetation conditions can be used. Ground control is required because the NDVI value is, influenced by many factors. For METEOSAT, such sites, have to be many tens of kilometres and for the AVHRR they must be in the order several kilometres, just 10 make sure that a "pure pixel” can be located. Where does ome find such areas equipped with sufficient instruments to capture the intrinsic spatial variability? ‘With the high resolution systems, some of the above problems are alleviated, but it should be remembered that not only green vegetation is of hydrologic interest, as the following example illustrates. Dense vegetation may not have high NDVI values at 80 the time of imaging. Grasslands, e.g., Imperara Ghlindrica covers, occupy large areas in southeast Asia, and it is known that, when dense and not burned, Hortonian overland flow is low and little or no erosion takes place, Most cloud-fre satellite imagery is taken during the ry season, when there is litle chlorophyll in the brown, dry grass leaves and thus low spectral VI Values are obtained. In several areas (Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia) it was found thatthe dry grasslands spectrally resemble areas with predominantly bare soils (Meijerink er al., 1987). For both the identification of such covers and the transformation into hydrologic values, local knowledge is required and for the mapping, aerial photography should be used in conjunction with multispectral data 4.3.5. Filtering Filtering is commonly used to (a) restore imagery due system malfunctioning, (b) enhance the imagery for visual interpretation and (c) extract features using the local spatial frequency content. ‘The use of filtering for the transformation of digital elevation models into slope maps and slope-aspect maps is discussed in the section on the use of DEMs. The applications of filtering discussed in this chapter are limited to some common filters which only change the values pet pixel as a result of the convolution of the! original image with the filter's impulse response. One’ should use a pointwise scheme with a moving window, such as the moving average method discussed in the chapter on interpolation. 4.3.5.1 Convolution, smoothing filters These filters are also known as. "low pass’ oF ‘smoothing’ filters. The univariate examples of Figure 4.31 illustrate the effects. The left side of the Figure contains the original scene values (along a scan line), the centre gives the operator filter) and the right hand side shows the result ‘The operator [0 1 0] leaves the scene unchanged. The filtered value of a 1/3 [1 1 1} operator results in a smoothing, as well asthe other two operators in Figure 4.31 the effects of which are shown in the image in Figure 4.32. It is obvious that such filters are not suitable for the creation of imagery for visual interpretation because of loss of sharpness. In some cases they are used to suppress noise 4.3.5.2 Contrast enhancement, edge enhancement filters ‘The enhancement of linear elements in the scene: (Grainage lines, lineaments, field boundaries, etc) may be: achieved by operators shown in Figure 4.33, resulting in de-convotution. The first one, {-1 1] results in depictingimperata ast Asia, burned, perosion ‘Smoothing nar sone opertor tect er a ‘ | 2a Tatox}ss| Bs] b 4 ase i TI | 7 onl © af zi oI . Eee q « Figure 4.31 Effect of smoothing operators on edges, (low pass filters). the border of spectral contrast and the second one [-1 0 101 fyb 1] in a broadening of that line, with a shift in position of 202 ad 000 1 pixel. The third one [-1 2-1] results in further visual 101 2-1 contrast by a high (. i grey tone on the image) and low DN (dark tone) next to each other. By increasing the central positive value ofthe operator, e.8., [-1 8 -1] the image preserves much of the information, but edges are a little sharpened. This filter may be used in a routine fashion for display. ‘These types of filters are also known as edge enhancement filters. Figure 4.34 depicts the effect approximations of 3x3 Laplacian operators: of digital @®, - oro aie S BSS 10 810. 10 As can be seen there is litle difference between the Laplace-A and the Laplace-B image; the histograms are similar. This type of transformation is suitable for the interpretation of linear features of interest, where one must select a relevant linear element, e.g., a fracture or fault in case of a groundwater study, a road, canal or drainage lines. ‘The strength of the local spectral gradient can be ‘enhanced by the Sobel filter, by applying the operator in ‘wo directions: Clearly, the Sobel filter also reduces the noise because ‘of smoothing in the orthogonal direction. However, as, with all directional filters applied to hilly terrain where sunlit and shadowed slopes are present, it has a tendency to enhance linear features perpendicular to the sun direction. This is most evident on the combined Sobel ters (See Figure 4.35). The spatial frequency information can also be extracted by subtracting the low pass image from the original one. In groundwater studies the detection of lineaments can be of direct importance, because high yielding wells are often found in the vieinity of lineaments. It is good practice to plot the interpreted lineaments back onto serial photographs, Not only may one obtain additional information on the nature of the lineament, but also the location will be more precise, as required for locating drilling sites. 4.3.5.3 Other filters After spectral classification, a majority filter could be applied to group the unclassified pixels (according to the ‘majority of the pixels ofthe class within the window) or to simplify boundary lines. The strength of the application is that use is made of a spatial criterion. The principle is illustrated by Figure 4.36, where a 3x3,Figure 4.32 Effect of smoothing filters. A. Original; B.smooth; C.Gaussian; D.Majority ‘window has been used, The decision rule is: = The central window pixel is assigned to the class of the majority within the window. = The effect of the majority filter is a simplification of the image, as is apparent from Figure 4.32. This filter is also effective in getting rid of ’slivers’ as a result of overlaying in GIS in raster mode. 82 ‘The majority filter belongs to a group including median filters’ or ‘rank order’ filters, where the DNs: within the chosen window size are ranked. Schachter et al., (1979) proposed a non-linear filter called variation. A 3x3 window around a pixel (x) could be labelled as follows:ding DNs er et Sharpening eaircines = recite s ; E e ie a ee lee Semele * Fs ta eT be > —— ~ ; Hse el (aes lef z a ee = 3 ce 2 in| Ks 1 d * z ] ‘eo Leon che Figure 4.33 The horizontal variation (H.V) is the sum of the absolute differences between all horizontal pars (a gh). The vertical variation (V.T.) between all vertical pairs (a-d),..., (€-h). The total variation T.V.= H.T. + VT. ‘A variance filter, which calculates the variance of the DNs in a window belongs to this group. The effect of this filter to extract local internal relief variations is illustrated in the section on the use of DTMs. 4.3.5.4 Filtering and interpolation A remotely sensed data set is contiguous by design of the system. The sensors of the platform measure the radiation, which for practical purposes may be taken 35 the integrated spectral values over a ground pixel Information on the internal composition has to be inferred from the local neighbourhood, e.g., the example of determining the river width, in a fraction of a pixel, see Section 4.4.2. By considering the pixels as point values, interpolation techniques using local neighbourhoods have been used to extract intra-pixel information, such as the gradient filter [2.2]. In some studies a sampling scheme is made of the pixels on the scene and interpolation procedures are Effect of edge enhancement operators (high pass filters) used. It is difficult to see the rationale of this approach, however, if mapping is the objective, because available spatial information is discarded, 4.4 COVER CLASSIFICATION BY RS, FIELD HYDROLOGY AND SIMULATION MODELS ‘The objective of automated classification is to group ‘the spectral information contained in the bands of the multispectral imagery, in such a way that they coincide best with known ground covers which have been defined for their hydrologic relevance. The latter generally refers to knowledge of relations between cover types and interception, infiltration, vegetal retardation to overland flow, crop-erosion factors and so on, By comparing spectral samples from the imagery with field classifications of the hydrotogic variable, one can study the degree of association between the two. 4.4.1 Sample sets and feature spaces ‘The sampling procedure plays a crucial role in obtaining an insight into the spectral properties as sensed by the system at a particular time. Based on this insight ‘a decision can be made on the classification procedure. 83Figure 4.34 Laplace-C. 4.4.1.1 General procedure ‘A sample set, also called “training st’ consists of the values of “pure pixels’ (see section 4.4.2), i.e. ground resolution elements which have only one cover type or terrain surface within a given image. ‘The selection of the pixel is based on knowledge of 84 Enhancement of contrast (edge enhancement). A. Original; B, Laplace-A; ©, Laplace-B; D. the "groundiruth’, that is, one knows that the selected category occurs at that precise locality. Generally, a display of the imagery is made and the cursor is moved to the known pixel, after which the pixel value (DN) is found in the files of the bands. Most sampling programs enlarge the sampling areas in a moving window. This assists the precise location. Pixelcted the the fost na ixel Figure 4.35 Effect of gradient filters. Note that linear features perpendicular to the sun direction are ‘enhanced. (A) Original; (B) Sobel-X; (C) Sobel-Y; (D) Sobel (X-+Y). by pixel sampling is recommended because of the precision involved. Sampling should continue till one is Satisfied that the spectral variation of the selected class is known. For the parametric classification methods, the number ‘of samples should be sufficient to estimate the frequency distributions and covariances. If broad categories are wanted, the so-called "training areas’, i.e., small sized polygons, may be used, as long as one is sure that all the pixels within the polygon belong to a single cover class. It is reasoned that by doing so the intrinsic spatial variation is incorporated. Labovitz et al., (1984) noted that the presence of autocorrelation in remotely sensed data results in an 85Par of classified image, two classes A and B 1 a A A A 5 A ea>ranolo 1 2] ala eB s| ala aB 4| alae s| alee s 6 Principle of @ majority filter. Within a moving window (e.g., 3x3), the central pixel is assigned the majority value. Figure 436 underestimation of the variance-covariance matrix when calculated from contiguous pixels. They warm ‘emphatically against the contiguous sampling (as by polygon training areas) and recommend sample spacings of over 10 pixels in the case of Thematic Mapper imagery, or a suitable filtering algorithm to remove the autocorrelation. A few examples illustrate the importance of the sample sets displayed in a feature space, 4.4.12 A common sample set for land cover classification The following cover categories have been defined for preparing input for a water quality model (AgNPS) of a catchment in southern Spain: 1, Wheat (w) (sown in late fall, harvested at end May, June) 2. Other crops (¢) (in rotation with wheat); bare soil, sunflower or peas, sown in March-April, harvested late summer, early fall 3. Orchards (0) (olive mainly, some almonds) 4. Forest (f) (predominantly planted pine) 5. Pasture lands (p) (varying density and herbaceous grasses) 6. stone outcrops (1) with patches of soil 86 (<15 em), including a partial cover wit asses 7. Water (w) A patt of the area is shown on the aerial photograph of Figure 4.37. From this it will be evident that much of the groundtruth can be derived directly from aerial photos. In fact mapping of permanent cover can be done accurately from the photographs, but this is quite time consuming, because of the transfer to a geometrically correct base. Also in some parts the Iand use will have ‘changed since the photographs were taken. For each category, a number of field locations throughout the catchment have been determined on the ‘TM imagery for spectral sampling. The precise location ‘was done by using aerial photography, topographic maps and a ground position system (GPS) if the location was problem. The results are shown in Figure 4.38, which shows a scattergraph (feature space) of the pixel values of bands 1 and 2 of TM. In order to assist the classifier (maximum likelihood, in this case) subsets of clusters hhave been made. As can be seen on the feature space, the number of clusters exceeds the number of categories. ‘The feature space of bands 1 and 2 shows that there is some association between the cover categories and the spectrally clustered values. However, there is overlap (Confusion) between several cover categories The feature spaces of other bands should be studied to ascertain whether or not the clusters are spectrally separate. By doing so one will also see which bands ‘contain correlated spectral data. Table 4.4 shows the ‘correlation matrix of the Thematic Mapper bands based ‘on the pixels within the catchment for which the sample set was obtained. Such a matrix may be useful for selecting the three least correlated bands for making a colour composite. All bands can be used for an ‘automatic classification method based on the sample set. short 4.4.1.3. A sample set for canopy cover Griffiths er al. (1982) measured canopy covers in an semi-arid area in north Kenya, consisting of Acacia shrub, Indigofera dwarf shrub and Aristida grassland species, using large scale aerial photographs and ground observations. The data was used to construct the feature space of bands 5 and 7 of Landsat MSS, shown in Figure 4.39 (data points from their publication, not the dashed lines). Bands 4 and 5 and bands 6 and 7 of Landsat MSS are highly correlated in semi-arid regions and therefore one may decide to use the bands 5 and 7 for a classification of the percentage canopy cover. Because of the overlap of the clusters the classification will not be very successful. One possibility is to segment off the feature space into 4 classes: 0-20%, 20-40%, 40- 70% and 70-100%, as shown by the dashed lines in the figure (in actual application the division lines will beaple for za set. and and ure in the of 17 Figure 4.37 Aerial photograph showing part of the Teba area, south Spain, for which the sample set of Figure 4.38 was taken. Because of the high spatial resolution much of the groundtruth can be obtained from the photographs, specially when stereo pairs are used stepped, to follow integer values on both scales). The nature of the association between the spectral values of the Landsat MSS and the canopy cover is such that only a crude approximation can be made. 4.4.1.4 A sample set and classification in mountainous terrain In areas with strong relief, illumination may have a dominant influence on intensity information. The satellite ‘overpasses generally occur between 9 and 10 o'clock in the morning when the sun is stil low. Thus, steep slopes facing the sun in the south-east will receive a much hhigher incoming radiation per unit area of groundslope than the ones facing the opposite direction, which may be in full shadow. ‘The effect of the intensity is illustrated in Figure 4.40. ‘The area sampled is located at the first ranges of the Lesser Himalayas, India. Haze correction has been applied. For the three existing dominant cover categories, samples have been taken on slopes with 0.78. ‘The result is shown in Figure 4.412. 2. A nearest neighbour classification, explained below. For the result, see Figure 4.41b. ‘The maximum likelihood classification method. This method assumes a normal distribution of the sample sets, and it will be obvious that this condition is not met, giving an unsatisfactory result (Figure 4.410). Comparing the results, itis obvious thatthe simplest classification (a) is the most satisfactory of the three, although there is confusion between the two forest types. However, the image does not contain the effects of the relief; it is a truly “flat” image. The nearest neighbour classifier creates more confusion. Also a fairly large number of unclassified pixels and the intensity effects of the relief start appearing. The worst result (¢) is obtained by the most sophisticated classifier, for reasons given. The confusion of result (a) can, in this example, be easily remedied by separating the valley areas from the rest and reclassifying all forested pixels as belonging to the deciduous class and consequently allTable 4.4 Correlation matrix for the TM bands of May 1991 in Teba catchment. BI B2 | BB Ba | Bs BG B7 B1_| 1.000 | 0.961 | 0.919 0.162_| 0.817 | 0.331 _| 0.840 B2_| 0.961 | 1.000 | 0.969 0.221 _| 0.836 | 0.409 _| 0.869 B3 | 0.919 | 0.969 | 1.000 0.152_| 0.856 | 0.476 | 0.912 B4 | o.t62 [0.221 | 0.153 1.000 | 0.254 | 0.159 | 0.113 Bs _| 0.817_| 0.836 | 0.856 0.254 | 1.000 | 0.441 _| 0.960 B6 | 0.331 | 0.409 | 0.474 0.159 | 0.441 | 1.000 | 0.457 B7 | 0.840 | 0.869 | 0.912 0.113 | 0.960 | 0.457_| 1.000 semaining pixels as mixed pine and oak forest. By adding the DNs of the two bands, an image with ‘te rotal brightness (intensities) is created, which gives "2 good relief impression, see Figure 4.414. Notice that ‘the upper forests are stil discernable because, apart from ‘colour differences, the forests also have lower ‘brightness 4.4.2 Pure and mixed pixels ‘The term “mixed pixels" or “mixels” is applied to Ghose pixels which comprise, within their ground dimensions, two or more cover classes. For example, ‘partis water and part is grassland. Such pixels add to the confusion in spectral classification schemes. In many ‘tropical countries the fields are small and may be subject ‘ intercropping. Variations of agro-forestry (mixtures of | ‘zee crops and food crops) and the ‘mixed vegetation’ or Stree savannah’ covers are other examples of -exvironments with mixed pixels. Land covers with such -Gharacieristics often result in a high frequency of DNs, ‘or in other words, low autocorrelation. Some implications of mixed pixels for hydrologic GStudies are discussed in the section on automated ‘lassification. If there are only two cover types which have a large speciral contrast and if the geography of the feature is simple, it is possible to estimate the position of such eaures as a land-water boundary. Suppose the DNs of 2 NIR band of a grassed floodplain vary around 2 value ‘0f 20, and the water body itself has a value of 2. From fhe values of the mixed pixels, 12 and 7, on either side fof the water body (see Figure 4.42), the width of the fiver can be estimated. The spatial resolution of the system is 30 m. The proportion of water (w) in the left Fhand mixed pixel must be 20 (30-w)/30 + 2/30 = 12, Ww = 13.3, The total width of the water body at this particular scan line is (2 x 30) + 13.3 + 8.3 = 81.6m. Obviously such estimates are only possible when geography and spectral properties are simple. 4.5 MULTISPECTRAL CLASSIFICATION METHODS ‘Automatic classification of multispectral imagery in remote sensing has been based on geometrical methods, Which are either deterministic or statistical. The approaches can also be categorized as being supervised or unsupervised, depending on whether or not use is made of groundtruth in the form of sample sets. The technique of ‘pattern recognition’ has generated sophisticated methods for feature selection and classification. The methods are explained by Duda and Hart (1973), Swain and Davis (eds. 1978), Green e al, (4983), Lillesand and Kiefer (1987). For most hydrological applications the simpler ‘methods may suffice. 4.5.1. Classification methods 4.5.1.1 Density slicing, box classifier Density slicing simply means dividing the histogram into two or more parts. To each sliced’spectral range, an identity or class name is given. Slicing will be only accurate when the histogram shows a bimodal distribution with separated populations (Figure 4.43). Such may be the case when clear water lakes are located in a vegetated area on the NIR band, without shadows from cliffs or steep mountains. In general the histograms are made up of more than 89A. Image created by segentation ofthe feature space of Figure 4.40, using three defined ratio’ C. Maximum likelihood classification, giving unsatisfactory results 2 bands only). Note unclassified pitels and shadow effects. B. Result neighbour classification, based on ‘sample set shown in Figure 4.40. Note rosult is loss satisfactory than that of Figure ‘A, mainly due to effect of shadow. D. Sum of two Landsat MSS bands (red and near infra-red). The image shows intensity information (relief effect) Figure 4.41 Results of different classification methods using two bands only, for three broad cover classes; mixed broadleaffconiferous forests at higher altitudes, deciduous Himalayan forest in valleys, sgrass/shrub/cultivated lands. (A) Simple segmentation, Figure 4.40; (B) Nearest neighbour; (C) Maximum likelihood. Because of strong relief, method A gives the best result. (D) Summation of bands (Le., intensity information), showing relief impression. one class, as illdstrated in Figure 4.436. By density slicing the overlap area is divided. The left tail-end of the other cover classes will be classified as "water’ and the right tal-end of the sub-histogram corresponding to ‘water bodies will be classified as ‘non-water’ A box or parallelepiped classifier in fact slices the densities in two or more dimensions, with the same problem as discussed above, 90 4.5.1.2 Imerpoint distance, nearest neighbour In a bivariate form, the algorithm compares the Euclidean distance of an unknown pixel to the position of the mean of the nearest clusters of the sample set of the feature space, without considering a statistical model of sampled values (Figure 4.44). The pixel is classified according to the minimum distance criterion and thus theFigure 4.42 Skeich showing digital numbers along scan line crossing homogeneous grassland bordering a river. An estimate of river width can be made within a fraction of pixel resolution. ® Figure 4.43 Skeich showing _bi-modal histograms. In case (A) there may be a little confusion in the classification result by density slicing, but not in case (B). pixel (P) will be classified as (W). ‘An extension of the method is to consider the distance to the nearest k, pixels of surrounding clusters (see Figure 4.44) where the search radius is extended till there are N pixels within the radius (k,=N). The pixel is clasified according to the majority, thus as class (¢) in the example. If no pixels belonging to clusters are met within the radius, the pixel may be left unclassified. Because of its simplicity the method is fast, but its discrimination performance is moderate in most cases. Figure 4.44 Sketch showing principle of nearest neighbour classification method. 4.5.1.3. Statistical distances Other distance measures have been used for classification, such as the Mahalanobis distance, which applies different weights to the various components (Duda and Hart, 1973). The intergroup distance between collections of points can be expressed in terms of probability functions associated with the groups, The advantage is that the within-group variability is considered inthe classification. ‘The so-called “IM distance’ or the “normalized distance’ is a statistical distance classifier. 4.5.1.4 Clustering techniques ‘The objective of non-supervised clustering isto group the spectral values of the original bands into one new ‘band, using some criterion for spectral similarity. Often the K-nearest neighbour algorithm is used by which some starting points are selected in the most appropriate manner. Through iterations, the starting points or initial clusters may be changed as more pixels are considered in the process, unless they are user-specified (supervised clustering). Unsupervised clustering is a data compression technique. The nevessity of post classification isthe main disadvantage of the method. Usually some known ground. ‘ruth pixels or small areas are recognized, which will have to be extrapolated over the entire compressed image. oo4.5.1.5 Maximum likelihood ‘This supervised statistical method uses the maximum likelihood criterion, generally under the Gaussian assumption for teasons of robustness and mathematical simplicity, The discriminant functions are given by: 800 = $i 9-F eeu Dit ow) where 4, is the vector of statistical averages of class i and ¥, the covariance matrix of class i. The final decision as to whether the pixel belongs to class i is siven ifs 8280) i+] and 8G) = T, here T, is the threshold for class i, whose purpose is to reject pixels that are too far from the statistical averages in the feature space. This threshold can be set at a desired level, which decides the number of unclassified pixels. ‘The parameters and Yi are estimated over the clusters of the sample set. Problems may be caused by a poor frequency distribution of an object class, manifested by broken-up clusters or irregularly shaped clusters in the feature spaces of band combinations. The distributions may be 50 poor that some of the class covariance matrices are singular and therefore non-inverible. This problem does not arise when fairly broad vegetation classes are sulficiently sampled, since the distributions resemble normal ones. The spectral sampling of specific ground features, selected for their hydrological significance, may give poor distributions of sample sets. Within the hydrologic class, one may sample spectral sub-classes of smaller but more compact clusters as is shown in Figure 4.38. After classification the sub-classes are joined. 4.5.2. Test of classification results Because of the empirical approaches, the results of spectral classifications need to be assessed for accuracy. Various methods, somewhat more elaborate than the simple one given below, have been proposed for expressing overall and category accuracies. Schachter et al, (1979) discuss and compare several of them and advocate Cohen's Kappa coefficients 4.5.2.1 Confusion matrix A common procedure is to compile a contingency table, termed a confusion matrix, e.g., the rows Table 4.5 Confusion matrix of May 1991 image with a threshold of 25. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7_| unc | acc 1 |12 |o 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.00 2 |o |e 15 4 0 1 0 1 0.75 eae 1 9 4 o 0 o 0 0.64 4 [0 0 3 35 0 16 0 ° 0.65 Saal iad oO 4 o 7 7 0 0 0.16 6 |o B 10 241 8 1 0 0 0.02 7 [0 0 0 0 0 o 6 0 1.00 reL | 0.79 | 0.95 | 022 | 055 | 0.47 | 0.04 | 1.00 average accuracy = 60.25 % We ity = 7398 overall accuracy = 64.16 %its of racy. n the 1 for ter er nd ency taining the results of the classification and the jumns the control set (groundtruth), which can be ‘ebiained in various ways. If a ground class is not ‘correctly idemtfied, it may be omitted from the spectral lasses and if an image class does not tally with groundtruth it is an error of commission. Confusion rises if omissions from one class are committed to another. Such a confusion matrix, is shown in Table 4.5. Only the cells in the diagonal contain the correctly classified pixels, all others are incorrectly classified. The sum of the entries on the diagonal divided by the total for the whole table may be taken as a measure for the overall classification accuracy, expressed as a percentage. For individual classes, the "map producers’ accuracy (Storey and Congalton, 1986) indicates the percentage accuracy with which a ground sample will be classified. It is calculated by dividing the diagonal entry by the total along the associated row. The 'map users’ accuracy is the percentage accuracy with which a sample from the classified image will actually represent that cover type on. the ground. It is the diagonal entry divided by the total of the associated column. iher terminology used is average performance (in %), defined as the average percentage of the correct classification for each area, weighted by the number of points in the area. Analogous definitions are valid for ‘average confusion, and average rejection, substituting correct classification by classification error and rejection, respectively. ‘The base for the comparison is pethaps more important than the method of accuracy assessment. Often, the classification results are compared with the sample set which was used for the classification. This tests the performance of the clasifier, not necessarily the accuracy of the results. Preferably one should obtain an independent sample set, the test set, by interpretation of large scale aerial photographs and field checks, and compare these with the results of the classification. The practical disadvantage is thatthe test set has to be large and well distributed over the atea of interest. It must be remembered that work involved compiling a good training set is usually grossly underestimated. For complex terrain, it may easily take several days if not longer. In addition, the test set has to be compiled. 4.5.2.2 Analysis of the results ‘The results as presented in the confusion matrix, Table 4.5, should lead to an examination of the causes of the misclassification, Based on this, one may decide to define sub-classes which are more suitable for spectral classification. ‘The above example is used for illustration of this point. All 102 pixels covered by wheat (class 1) according to the field observation have been correctly classified from the spectral data. However, many of the pixels with pasture (no. 5), have been spectrally classified as *wheat’, some as ‘orchard’, and an equal number of pixels as pasture (it was hoped that the vast majority of the pixels would be in this cell) and some other pixels as rock’. The reasons for the confusion or misclassification is not difficult to find in this case. Most of the pasture ands occur on the hills where the soils are shallow, and the herbaceous grass cover is highly variable. Where the ‘grass is dense and high, in a spectral sense it resembles wheat. Where the grass is poor, the spectral response is not unlike that of the outcrops or of the orchards, which are frequently well weeded and have a low canopy coverage, and thus much bare soil is exposed. By ‘knowing the area, similar explanations could be given for the confusion in some of the other categories. In fact Table 4.5 shows the results after subclasses, hhave been made so that there is little room for further improvement using the data from a single image. It was therefore decided to use multitemporal imagery in the study. 4.5.2.3 Improving classification results, unclassified pixels If the results of a spectral classification do not meet expectations, additional operations may be attempted. However, if a proper sample set has been compiled and 4 good classification method selected, with appropriate parameter values, improvements may be marginal because the problems usually lie in spectral similarities of desired ground cover categories It may be possible to improve the results by introducing more spectral classes. This may be done for two reasons: 1. More classes may be made in the domains where spectral information exists in the scene, but which have been overlooked in the preparation of the first sample set. 2, Sub-classes may be introduced by taking into account ‘the terrain properties which influence the spectral signature. Classes selected during the first attempt may be divided into sub-classes wihich may be closer to the assumptions made of the classifier, e.g., Gaussian distributions of the maximum likelihood method (Niblack, 1986). In the above example, there is much confusion in the cover class “orchards’, as is evident from the confusion matrix. This is due to much variation. in the colour of the top soil, percentage of exposed stones which inereases with time after ploughing as well as the stage of weed development. By making sub-classes according to such properties, the classification results will improve. After spectral 93classification, the subclasses can be merged, if so desired. Suppose a class dense vegetation has been defined, for use as an index for estimation of infiltration. It is likely that the various land covers under this category have widely ranging spectral properties. The cluster “dense vegetation’ on the feature space will show much overlap with other categories. In this case it makes sense to separate classes of the various dense vegetation categories, taking into account their spectral proper ‘on the feature space. All classes pertaining to “dense vegetation’ may be merged after classification. Ancillary non-spectral information may be used to improve the classification results, For example, if riparian forest cannot be differentiated spectrally from other forest types in the area of study, a distance zone along the rivers could be introduced and the rule applied stating that the forests within the distance zone are classified as riparian forests. In the discussion of the feature space of the mountainous terrain (4.1.5) a height zonation was introduced to separate forest classes The decision rules have to be formulated and applied ‘and these correspond to a pre-classification, as discussed bby Hutchinson (1982), Classes may be poorly discriminated with a given classification rule, but well discriminated with another or several other rules. A hierarchical multilayered approach could be adopted, based on apriori probabilities of occurrence of the classes, as described by Duscros-Gambart et al., 1984, Gastellu-Etchegorry et al., 1993) ‘Spatial patterns may be used to improve the results of the classification, because the patterns may provide additional discrimination criteria. The use of a post classification majority filter has been mentioned (Seetion 3.5.3). The spatial patterns may be included simply by visual interpretation, using knowledge of the area, or by spatial feature extraction using filters. Ina study in humid tropical south Sumatra, Indonesia, the extent of the cultivated area for annual food crops, including shifting cultivation, was of interest for an erosion study ‘The automatic classification proved to be unsatisfactory because of the large spectral variation of this class, causing much overlap and confusion with other classes. The field photo of Figure 4.45 shows some of the vegetational complexity of a slash and burn field, surrounded by secondary vegetation of various types. ‘The spectral variability is understandable considering the sequence of cutting, burning, cleaning, planting, crop and weed growth on the clearings. These sequences do not start at the same time. However the size of clearings is many times greater than the spatial resolution of the satellite imagery used (SPOT) and show some, albeit varying, contrast with the surroundings. The image was enhanced to improve contrast differences between the fields and their surroundings. The fields were delineated 94 First year clearing (Ladang) in the uplands of the Komering catchment, Sumatra. by hand, digitized and added to the classification result Iemay be noted that automated textural feature extract techniques didnot prove tobe useful forthe inventory of the fields, chiefly because both fields and surroundings had high variability ‘The ask of trying out textural classifiers proved to be rnuch more ime consuming than the visual interpretation and digitizing ofthe result. Visual classification can also be very effective if there is much shadow due to rele, using the principle thatthe land cover on a shadowed’ slope is not likely to be different from that ofthe immediate surroundings. This say not be true in hilly repfons where the vegetation i adjusted 10 the slope-aspeet, as can be detected on serial photographs The automated methods for extracting spatial features as an additional information source for automated classification has received considerable attention, e, Duda and Hart, 1973 Swain and Davis (eds), 1978, Dutra and Mascarenhas, 1984, Gorte and Mulder 1987 ‘The classification could include other transformed bands, next to the filtered ones, such as spectrally rotated bands, NDVI ransform and PC transform, There is a whole gambit of possible transformations and therefore it is necessary to establish a rationale first, before performing certain transformations, based on the characteristics of the area andthe purpose. Unclassfed pivels are those pixels which the classification algorithm cannot assign to one of the sample sets, They creste an unwanted situation in an inventory: There are several ways to find a solution, but if one uses only one scene of a particular date. the clasifiaton of ll pixels is ikely tobe inacurate ness sxcillary information is used. The unclassified pixels are oten mixed pixels, Technically, unclassified pixels can be eliminded by selecting the parameter settings of the clasification method used, such a the threshold value (1) of the maximum likelihood classifier or the distanceparameters (K) of the nearest neighbour method. By doing so more pixels are assigned, often wrongly, to one of the clusters in the sample set. Pethaps the best way to minimize unclassified pixels in general is to use multitemporal imagery The auditional information related to spectral shifs of seasonally changing cover types is usually suficent for the classification ofall pixels 4.5.3. Data compression Data compression is required when. (1) a selection has to be made out of a large number of spectral bands into three new ones for visualization, because there are only 3 primary colours. Furthermore, not all the available bands may contribute to the recognition or clasification of desired features (@) a large number of temporal imagery is available. 4.5.3.1 Compression of spectral data With the 3 bands of SPOT, and the 4 bands of Landsat MSS, often band 6 of the early MSS (ERTS) or band 3 of the later MSS has been omitted, and the problem does not arise. Three bands can be displayed simultaneously and there are only 6 feature spaces of possible band combinations, In fact, in many tropical rogions one is fortunate to have a cloud free image of recent date; the problem is usually data expansion in the form of multi-seasonal imagery rather than compression. However, with the advent of the Thematic Mapper more Dbands have become available than can be displayed in a single colour composite. New satellite systems are under preparation, allowing for an increase in the number of spectral bands. Data compression is achieved by applying, classification methods in n-dimensional space. For the supervised classification the sample sets have t© be examined in various 2-dimensional feature spaces to ensure that the spectral variation existing in the image is captured in the sample set. ‘There are however 15 such feature spaces for the six non-thermal TM bands and there are 20 possible combinations for displaying the bands in colour composites. In practice the bands to be used depend on the nature of the feature of interest. For example, if the extension of water bodies is of interest, a single near- infrared band may suffice. ‘The spectral properties of other specific features may ‘well be studied adequately om a limited number of bands, e.g. dense vegetation. Although statistics are a poor substitute for knowledge, one could be assisted by such ‘methods as the “optimum index factor’ of Chaver al (1982). By this index the 20 three band colour combinations of TM are ranked, based on the total variance and the correlation, The combination with the largest index will have most information, as expressed by the variance, and the least duplication, as expressed by the correlation, As discussed, the principle component technique may bbe used, or, for TM, the tasselled cap transform. An altemative is to reduce the data set to three new bands by an unsupervised clustering method. Various approaches are possible, for example, using three pairs Of the most correlated bands, based on the expectation ‘that the pixels with the least correlation will be set apart by the clustering method, 4.5.3.2 Compression of multitemporal data Some examples of using colour coding for not more than three multi-temporal imageries have already been given. When one or more images are obtained daily from the ‘weather satellites, the strategy for data compression is to retain only the significant features through suitable algorithms. The cold cloud duration images or the accumulated NDVI imagery are typical examples. An illustration of the latter is shown in Figure 4.46 from METEOSAT of Burkina Faso, Figure 4.46 Coefficient of variation of vegetation index as indicator of drought risk, calculated from maximum yearly values 1984-1990, Burkina Faso (after Groten, 1994) The imagery has been accumulated in a GIS (Groten, 1994). A problem is that bth radiometric and geometric corrections have to be precise for automated data compression. 954.5.4 Cover classifi jon and hydrologic analysis 4.5.4.1 Approaches Before any automated classification is attempted, fist the existing land cover types and associations have 0 be studied spectrally in relation to the specific hydrologic classes or input parameters required for the given hydrologic analysis. If one uses a rainfall-runof? model Which specifically requires land cover types as determined by remote sensing (SIMPLE, Kouwen et l., 1990) the study will be directed by the model input, For other hydrologic models, the remote sensing may only give approximations of the desired parameters (see the discussion on surrogate hydrologic data) There are also situations where, by remote sensing, cover classes can be produced which have 16 be simplified or re- classified to serve as input ‘A few examples may clarify these points. Ifthe SCS curve number method (CN) is adopted, all cover classifications have to be grouped into the four hydrologic vegetation clases of the method. Suppose a hydrologic model is used whereby imereeption functions require input. This requires another fook atthe spectral data sets. Much wit! depend ‘on the sensitivity of the model parameters related to the cover and the availability of measured interception data, ‘The true interception is very difficult to determine and in practice remains at the level of rough estimates, the classification could be adjusted to this level of detail Classes selected for the interception input will differ from those used for the curve numbers. Different classification methods, will also be required, e.g., a nearest neighbour method and the NDVI ‘There are infiltration equations which include a factor or coefficient for the vegetation, because there is abundant evidence that a protective cover influences the infiltration appreciably If one wants a cover classification for infiltration, the canopy density near the soil surface is the most important factor Any good vegetal shield for raindrop impact and radiation causes. also obstruction and trapping of overland flow and increases infiltration. Thus, the image processing will have to concentrate on those spectral classes known, through field observations to be related to the protective function, Fairly broad classes will describe good infiltration conditions, such as groupings of open forest with good undergrowth, dense grasses, dense shrublands and so on, which are all part of one hydrologic class. In some cases even a fairly narrowly defined land cover class, such as "sparsely vegetated limestone ‘outcrops’ may be too wide in a hydrological sense. If a part of those outcrops have well developed surface Kars, xno runoff will occur, no matter how high the rainfall intensity or antecedent moisture, The non-karstic limestone outerops, if smooth, may produce considerable runoff. In such cases one should try to separate spectrally the karstic from the non-karstic limestone ‘outcrops. An image with @ low sun angle may be helpful because Karstic surfaces have much micro-shadow, suppressing the brightness. Also the vegetation responses may differ in non-arid and non-humid areas, because plants and trees growing in the solutional depressions. may give a different spectral response to vegetation on. non karstic limestones. If spectral classifications fail, aerial photographs may offer a way out. Figure 4.474 shows a karstified dip slope with zero runoff under all rainfall, Figure 4.47b shows non-karstic limestone, a few kilometres from the karstc site. Figure 4.47 Dipslope with karstic limestone (no runcff, full internal drainage), in contact with shales (left ‘hand). Marly timestones and non-karstic limestones, with high runoff 7 km from left photo same scale (right hand) 96factor ere is es the For urban hydrology, the class definition could be designed to describe the permeability of the surfaces, no ‘matter what their ‘land use’ is. The spectral properties of surfaces with low permeabilities, such as roof tops, asphalt, conerete, compacted earth and so on should be sampled, as well as those with higher permeability, such as parks and gardens. Basically, two approaches are possible: Approach 1 Complex, exhaustive spectral cover € classification Reclassification of classes according to hydrologic parameter X1, X2, etc. Approach 2 Specification of € required parameter Spectral classification for parameter X1, for X2, etc. ‘The first approach has the advantage that all pixels will be classified. However, if a hydrologic model requires input of more than one parameter related to cover types, many of the same patterns will be entered, ‘but with different numerical values, Separate spectral classifications for each parameter seem a good solution, but it should be remembered that all ground covers with a specific spectral signature must be classified. In practice, a combination of the two approaches is adopted, whereby the level of detail, i.e, the number of classes, depends on the sensitivity of the ‘model parameter, the performance of the empirical transfer functions and the spectral properties of the dara set 4.5.4.2 Hydrologic ground truth, need for ancillary data Image processing should be done by the hydrotogist ‘who is familiar with the catchment. The discussion on the use of the NDVI transform and the example used for classification demonstrates the importance of having “hydrologic groundtruth’ when image classification techniques with remotely sensed data are considered. It is a fallacy to assume that mere spectral data, in a relative or absolute sense, can provide an adequate level of hydrologic information, irrespective of the sophistication of processing the digital data. Simple transparent transform may be sufficient, if merged with ‘ancillary information, The assessment of the hydrologic condition of the vegetation can be used to illustrate point. Many of the teak plantations of Java are located ‘on Tertiary marls and sandstones and some of them have Tittle undergrowth and litter In such cases there are abundant signs of strong runoff and erosion and the data from many runoff plots (Coster, 1938) show this clearly Similar observations can be made in other tropical regions, extensive Eucalyptus plantations in Madagascar, overgrazed Sal forests in northem India, Diptocarpus dominated forests in central Thailand, and so on. On the imagery the canopies are observed, and without sufficient field observations, there is a danger that the class. "forest" resulting from an automated spectral classifier, will be thought to have good hydrologic conditions , which may not be the case at all By merging remotely sensed data with other information, the hydrologic condition of the clas forest” can be identified. In the above example the areas classified spectrally as teak forests in two classes, could be overlaid witha geologic map and a slope map created from an approximate DTM in a GIS. Simple decision rules, based on field observations and ancillary thematic rap data, could be made to account for the hydrologic condition under the areas covered by ‘Teak forest. Coincidence of marls and sandstones with sloping terrain and given distances along low order drainage lines could be assigned to the class ‘poor hydrologic condition’ Gentle sloping lands on shales, beyond the distance of the incising drainage lines and ata selected distance from villages could be assigned to the ‘good hydrologic condition’ class. All other eases could be grouped in an intermediate hydrologic condition. This would not give ‘m accurate account ofthe real situation, but it would be an improvement on an estimate without segmentation, The segmentation scheme is shown in Figure 4.48. The above rues are implemented by typical GIS operations. (The example is partly based on an unpublished study from pre-GIS days, where use was made of hundreds of observations of the depth of root exposures of the teak trees, measured systematically by forest guards along compass lines, plotted on a base map with lithology added.) 4.5.5. Scheme of operations ‘Imagery may be used in many ways and therefore it is difficult to list all possible procedures. However for common applications general guidelines can be given, using techniques and considerations discussed above. Interpretation and mapping If the purpose is to create an image for interpretation for map updating, lineament extraction, vegetation-land use classes, geological map updating, location and ‘mapping of highly dissected terrain, and so on, the sequence of operations is.‘Teak plantation forest, diferent age classes $A cringe: tooo hae tae sandones [shale [a sales rot i Heep a > ote ct vitago hydrologic condition: Ls as fa a

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