www.environment.gov.

au/ssd

A rule-set driven approach to classifying vegetation from high spatial resolution imagery
Dr T Whiteside*, Dr R Bartolo# & G Staben+
* Remote Sensing Scientist, Spatial Sciences and Data Integration # Program Leader, Spatial Sciences and Data Integration
+NT

Department of Natural Resources, Environment, The Arts and Sport

Supervising Scientist - working to protect the environment from the impacts of uranium mining

A vegetation map of the Magela floodplain

Ramsar wetland Dynamic vegetation cover Downstream from Ranger minesite Ecological risks
Weeds Fire Ferals

Supervising Scientist Division

Vegetation map

GEOBIA approach
Partitioning Step-wise Processing and analysis specific to region Robust rule-set Transferrable (hopefully)

Supervising Scientist Division

Study site

Magela Creek floodplain

Darwin
! !

Jabiru

Alligator Rivers Region

Pine Creek

50 100 km

Darwin

OENPELLI
"

Northern Territory

JABILUKA MINE

Mining Lease Boundary Major Roads Rivers Kakadu National Park Boundary Coastal Floodplains Arnhem Land Plateau
0 2.5 5 10 Kilometres

JABIRU
"
!

m
4

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Data

WorldView-2 multispectral DEM Mask of town and mine

0 2,500 5,000 Metres

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Issues

Differing view angle for Region 1 Mixed cover on floodplain Water Some cloud cover/shadow

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WorldView-2

0.5 m Panchromatic - 1 band 2 m Multispectral - 8 bands

surface reflectance

Red edge and 2 NIR bands

Supervising Scientist Division

Conceptual process diagram Split image

in objects Masks

Based on class rules/ thresholds

Segment

Classify
Do objects still contain a mix of classes?

Iterative segmentation/ classification approach

No

Single class objects?

Yes Finish class

Supervising Scientist Division

Mask out minesites and township

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Apply water mask

Threshold segmentation Pixels with low NIR1 values

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Delineate Floodplain using DEM

90 m SRTM DEM 10 m 2004 AP DEM 6 m threshold

90 m DEM
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10 m DEM
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Floodplain DEM - 6m threshold

90 m DEM
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10 m DEM
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6m threshold

90 m DEM
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10 m DEM
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5 m threshold

90 m DEM
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10 m DEM
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Cloud mask

Based on FDI (Bunting and Lucas 2006) FDI = NIR2 (Red Edge + Blue)

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Now for the hard part

Indices and ratios based on mean spectral values of objects Relative not absolute values (where possible)

Four spectral ratios/indices used:

NDVI FDI R/RE (NIR2+RE)-B

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Initial segmentation Conditional quadtree segmentation top down Multiscale segmentation based on spectral variance - NDVI standard deviation

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All masks applied

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1st classification
Radiometric issue Region 1

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Nth classification

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Next steps

Refine classification - eg Region 1 Accuracy assessment Non-floodplain vegetation Applying rule-set to 2011 WV-2 data

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