A classification-based assessment of the optimal spectral and spatial resolutions for Great Lakes coastal wetland imagery

We analyzed hyperspectral airborne imagery (CASI 2 with 46 contiguous VIS/NIR bands) that was acquired over a Lake Huron coastal wetland. To support detailed Great Lakes coastal wetland mapping, the optimal spatial resolution of imagery was determined to be less than 2 m. There was a 23% change in classification resiliency using the SAM classifier upon resampling the original 1-meter, 18-band imagery to 2-meter pixels, and further classifications with larger pixels (4 and 8 m) increased overall classification change to 35% and 50%, respectively.We performed a series of image classification experiments incorporating three independent band selection methodologies (derivative magnitude, fixed interval and derivative histogram), in order to explore the effects of spectral resampling on classification resiliency. This research verified that a minimum of seven, strategically located bands in the VIS-NIR wavelength region (425.4 nm, 514.9 nm, 560.1 nm, 685.5 nm, 731.5 nm, 812.3 nm and 916.7 nm) are necessary to maintain a classification resiliency above the 85% threshold. Significantly, these seven bands produced the highest classification resiliency using the fewest number of bands of any of the 63 band-reduction strategies that were tested.Analyzing only derivative magnitudes proved to be an unreliable tool to identify optimal bands. The fixed interval method was adversely influenced by the starting band location, making its implementation problematic. The combined use of derivative magnitude and frequency of occurrence appears to be the best method to determine the “optimal” bands for a wetland mapping hyperspectral application.     

Detecting Tamarisk species (Tamarix spp.) in riparian habitats of Southern California using high spatial resolution hyperspectral imagery

Exotic plant invasion is a major environmental and ecological concern and is a particular issue for Mediterranean-type ecosystems. Early detection of invasive plants is crucial for effective weed management. Several studies have explored hyperspectral imagery for mapping invasive plants with promising results. However, only a few extensive or comparative studies about image processing techniques for invasive plant detection have been reported, and even fewer studies have involved very high spatial and spectral resolution imagery. The primary goal of this study was to investigate the utility of very high spatial (0.5 m) and spectral (4 nm) resolution imagery and several classification approaches for detecting tamarisk (Tamarix spp.) infestations, the most problematic invasive plant species in the riparian habitats of southern California.Hierarchical clustering was a particularly effective and efficient statistical method for identifying wavebands and spectral transforms having the greatest discriminatory power. Products resulting from the classification of airborne hyperspectral image data varied by scene, input data type, classifier, and minimum patch size. Overall accuracy of image classification accuracy of products co-varied with commission error rates, such that products having strong agreement with reference data also had a high number of false detections. Integrating the findings from qualitative map analysis, areal proportion statistics, and object-based accuracy assessment indicates that the parallelepiped classifier with several narrow wavebands selected through hierarchical clustering yielded the most accurate and reliable tamarisk classification products.     

Estimating forage quantity and quality using aerial hyperspectral imagery for northern mixed-grass prairie

Sustainable rangeland stewardship calls for synoptic estimates of rangeland biomass quantity (kg dry matter ha^− 1) and quality [carbon:nitrogen (C:N) ratio]. These data are needed to support estimates of rangeland crude protein in forage, either by percent (CP_c) or by mass (CP_m). Biomass derived from remote sensing data is often compromised by the presence of both photosynthetically active (PV) and non-photosynthetically active (NPV) vegetation. Here, we explicitly quantify PV and NPV biomass using HyMap hyperspectral imagery. Biomass quality, defined as plant C:N ratio, was also estimated using a previously published algorithm. These independent algorithms for forage quantity and quality (both PV and NPV) were evaluated in two northern mixed-grass prairie ecoregions, one in the Northwestern Glaciated Plains (NGGP) and one in the Northwestern Great Plains (NGP). Total biomass (kg ha^− 1) and C:N ratios were mapped with 18% and 8% relative error, respectively. Outputs from both models were combined to quantify crude protein (kg ha^− 1) on a pasture scale. Results suggest synoptic maps of rangeland vegetation mass (both PV and NPV) and quality may be derived from hyperspectral aerial imagery with greater than 80% accuracy.     

Mapping an invasive plant, Phragmites australis, in coastal wetlands using the EO-1 Hyperion hyperspectral sensor

Mapping tools are needed to document the location and extent of Phragmites australis, a tall grass that invades coastal marshes throughout North America, displacing native plant species and degrading wetland habitat. Mapping Phragmites is particularly challenging in the freshwater Great Lakes coastal wetlands due to dynamic lake levels and vegetation diversity. We tested the applicability of Hyperion hyperspectral satellite imagery for mapping Phragmites in wetlands of the west coast of Green Bay in Wisconsin, U.S.A. A reference spectrum created using Hyperion data from several pure Phragmites stands within the image was used with a Spectral Correlation Mapper (SCM) algorithm to create a raster map with values ranging from 0 to 1, where 0 represented the greatest similarity between the reference spectrum and the image spectrum and 1 the least similarity. The final two-class thematic classification predicted monodominant Phragmites covering 3.4% of the study area. Most of this was concentrated in long linear features parallel to the Green Bay shoreline, particularly in areas that had been under water only six years earlier when lake levels were 66 cm higher. An error matrix using spring 2005 field validation points (n = 129) showed good overall accuracy—81.4%. The small size and linear arrangement of Phragmites stands was less than optimal relative to the sensor resolution, and Hyperion's 30 m resolution captured few if any pure pixels. Contemporary Phragmites maps prepared with Hyperion imagery would provide wetland managers with a tool that they currently lack, which could aid attempts to stem the spread of this invasive species.     

Distinguishing wetland vegetation and channel features with object-based image segmentation

Mapping landscape features within wetlands using remote-sensing imagery is a persistent challenge due to the fine scale of wetland pattern variation and the low spectral contrast among plant species. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) is a promising approach for distinguishing wetland features, but systematic guidance for this use of OBIA is not presently available. A sensitivity analysis was tested using OBIA to distinguish vegetation zones, vegetation patches, and surface water channels in two intertidal salt marshes in southern San Francisco Bay. Optimal imagery sources and OBIA segmentation settings were determined from 348 sensitivity tests using the eCognition multiresolution segmentation algorithm. The optimal high-resolution (≤1 m) imagery choices were colour infrared (CIR) imagery to distinguish vegetation zones, CIR or red, green, blue (RGB) imagery to distinguish vegetation patches depending on species and season, and RGB imagery to distinguish surface water channels. High-resolution (1 m) lidar data did not help distinguish small surface water channels or other features. Optimal segmentation varied according to segmentation setting choices. Small vegetation patches and narrow channels were more recognizable using small scale parameter settings and coarse vegetation zones using larger scale parameter settings. The scale parameter served as a de facto lower bound to median segmented object size. Object smoothness/compactness weight settings had little effect. Wetland features were more recognizable using high colour/low shape weight settings. However, an experiment on a synthetic non-wetland image demonstrated that, colour information notwithstanding, segmentation results are still strongly affected by the selected image resolution, OBIA settings, and shape of the analysis region. Future wetland OBIA studies may benefit from strategically making imagery and segmentation setting choices based on these results; such systemization of future wetland OBIA approaches may also enhance study comparability.     

Impact of pixel size on mapping surface water in subsolar imagery

We observed surface water in a wetland, imaging in the subsolar or specular direction the exceptionally bright specular reflection of sunlight at a ground resolution of 0.3 m. We then simulated ground resolutions between 1.7 m and 1.2 km through aggregation of the 0.3 m pixels. Contrary to the expectations of some of our colleagues in the wetlands community, for these data, the accuracy of spectral mixture analysis (SMA) estimates of surface water increases as pixel ground footprint size increases. Our results suggest that regional to global scale assessments of flooded landscapes and wetlands that do not involve issues requiring 1 m resolution per se may be addressed with acceptable accuracy by applying SMA techniques to low resolution imagery. Our results indicate within-pixel estimates of surface water area derived from data measured by subsolar viewing sensors with large ground pixel footprints, such as satellite POLarization and Directionality of Earth Radiance (POLDER) data, may be highly accurate under strong surface wind conditions.     

Mapping nonnative plants using hyperspectral imagery

Nonnative plant species are causing enormous ecological and environmental impacts from local to global scale. Remote sensing images have had mixed success in providing spatial information on land cover characteristics to land managers that increase effective management of invasions into native habitats. However, there has been limited evaluation of the use of hyperspectral data and processing techniques for mapping specific invasive species based on their spectral characteristics. This research evaluated three different methods of processing hyperspectral imagery: minimum noise fraction (MNF), continuum removal, and band ratio indices for mapping iceplant (Carpobrotus edulis) and jubata grass (Cortaderia jubata) in California's coastal habitat. Validation with field sampling data showed high mapping accuracies for all methods for identifying presence or absence of iceplant (97%), with the MNF procedure producing the highest accuracy (55%) when the classes were divided into four different densities of iceplant.     

Leaf chlorophyll content retrieval from airborne hyperspectral remote sensing imagery

Hyperspectral remote sensing has great potential for accurate retrieval of forest biochemical parameters. In this paper, a hyperspectral remote sensing algorithm is developed to retrieve total leaf chlorophyll content for both open spruce and closed forests, and tested for open forest canopies. Ten black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.)) stands near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, were selected as study sites, where extensive field and laboratory measurements were carried out to collect forest structural parameters, needle and forest background optical properties, and needle biophysical parameters and biochemical contents chlorophyll a and b. Airborne hyperspectral remote sensing imagery was acquired, within one week of ground measurements, by the Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager (CASI) in a hyperspectral mode, with 72 bands and half bandwidth 4.25-4.36 nm in the visible and near-infrared region and a 2 m spatial resolution. The geometrical-optical model 4-Scale and the modified leaf optical model PROSPECT were combined to estimate leaf chlorophyll content from the CASI imagery. Forest canopy reflectance was first estimated with the measured leaf reflectance and transmittance spectra, forest background reflectance, CASI acquisition parameters, and a set of stand parameters as inputs to 4-Scale. The estimated canopy reflectance agrees well with the CASI measured reflectance in the chlorophyll absorption sensitive regions, with discrepancies of 0.06%-1.07% and 0.36%-1.63%, respectively, in the average reflectances of the red and red-edge region. A look-up-table approach was developed to provide the probabilities of viewing the sunlit foliage and background, and to determine a spectral multiple scattering factor as functions of leaf area index, view zenith angle, and solar zenith angle. With the look-up tables, the 4-Scale model was inverted to estimate leaf reflectance spectra from hyperspectral remote sensing imagery. Good agreements were obtained between the inverted and measured leaf reflectance spectra across the visible and near-infrared region, with R² = 0.89 to R² = 0.97 and discrepancies of 0.02%-3.63% and 0.24%-7.88% in the average red and red-edge reflectances, respectively. Leaf chlorophyll content was estimated from the retrieved leaf reflectance spectra using the modified PROSPECT inversion model, with R² = 0.47, RMSE = 4.34 μg/cm², and jackknifed RMSE of 5.69 μg/cm² for needle chlorophyll content ranging from 24.9 μg/cm² to 37.6 μg/cm². The estimates were also assessed at leaf and canopy scales using chlorophyll spectral indices TCARI/OSAVI and MTCI. An empirical relationship of simple ratio derived from the CASI imagery to the ground-measured leaf area index was developed (R² = 0.88) to map leaf area index. Canopy chlorophyll content per unit ground surface area was then estimated, based on the spatial distributions of leaf chlorophyll content per unit leaf area and the leaf area index.     

Postfire soil burn severity mapping with hyperspectral image unmixing

Burn severity is mapped after wildfires to evaluate immediate and long-term fire effects on the landscape. Remotely sensed hyperspectral imagery has the potential to provide important information about fine-scale ground cover components that are indicative of burn severity after large wildland fires. Airborne hyperspectral imagery and ground data were collected after the 2002 Hayman Fire in Colorado to assess the application of high resolution imagery for burn severity mapping and to compare it to standard burn severity mapping methods. Mixture Tuned Matched Filtering (MTMF), a partial spectral unmixing algorithm, was used to identify the spectral abundance of ash, soil, and scorched and green vegetation in the burned area. The overall performance of the MTMF for predicting the ground cover components was satisfactory (r² = 0.21 to 0.48) based on a comparison to fractional ash, soil, and vegetation cover measured on ground validation plots. The relationship between Landsat-derived differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) values and the ground data was also evaluated (r² = 0.20 to 0.58) and found to be comparable to the MTMF. However, the quantitative information provided by the fine-scale hyperspectral imagery makes it possible to more accurately assess the effects of the fire on the soil surface by identifying discrete ground cover characteristics. These surface effects, especially soil and ash cover and the lack of any remaining vegetative cover, directly relate to potential postfire watershed response processes.     

Linking physiological responses,chlorophyll fluorescence and hyperspectral imagery to detect salinity stress using the physiological reflectance index in the coastal shrub,Myrica cerifera

Measurements of physiology, chlorophyll fluorescence and hyperspectral reflectance were used to detect salinity stress in the evergreen coastal shrub, Myrica cerifera on Hog Island, Virginia. Two experimental sites were used in our study, the oceanside of a M. cerifera thicket, which is exposed to sea spray, and the protected, leeside of the thicket. Using the physiological reflectance index (PRI), we were able to detect stress at both the canopy and landscape level. Monthly variations in stomatal conductance, photosynthesis, and relative water content indicated a strong summer drought response that was not apparent in chlorophyll fluorescence or in the water band index (WBI) derived from canopy and airborne reflectance measurements. In contrast, there were significant differences in both physiological measurements and tissue chlorides between the two sites used in the study, indicating salinity stress. This was reflected in measurements of PRI. There was a positive relationship between PRI measured at the canopy-level and light-adapted fluorescence (ΔF/F′_m; r² = 0.69). PRI was significantly lower on the oceanside of the Myrica cerifera thicket. PRI was not significantly related to NDVI (r² = 0.01) at the canopy-level and only weakly related (r² = 0.04) at the landscape-level, suggesting that the indices are independent. The chlorophyll index (CI) did not show any significant changes between the two sites. Frequency histograms of pixels sampled from airborne hyperspectral imagery revealed that the distribution of PRI was shifted to the right on the backside of the thicket relative to the oceanside and there was a significant difference between sites. These results suggest that PRI may be used for early identification of salt-stress and to identify areas across the landscape where community structure may change due to sea-level rise.     

Exploring spectral discrimination of grass species in African rangelands

The spectral reflectance from eight species of rangeland grasses in the Masai Mara Nature Reserve, Kenya, was measured using a laboratory-based spectrometer. There were statistically significant differences in the spectral reflectance between species-a result which is encouraging for future work on identifying, classifying, mapping and monitoring rangeland ecosystems from hyperspectral imagery. To date, hyperspectral imagery has been available only through airborne scanners, but the European Space Agency and the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) both plan satellite missions. The second part of this paper describes the acquisition and analysis of hyperspectral data (CASI) coincident with ground plots. In these plots, the mix of grass species varied from pure (monospecific) patches through to mixes of four to five different species. Evidence is presented indicating that some species may be identified on the image, based on the laboratory-obtained spectra.     

谐波分析光谱角制图高光谱影像分类

目的 针对光谱角制图(SAM)分类算法对高光谱像元光谱曲线的局部特征和其辐射强度不敏感,而且易受噪声和维数灾难影响,致使分类效率低和精度较差等缺陷,将谐波分析(HA)技术引入到SAM高光谱影像分类中,提出一种基于谐波分析的光谱角制图(HA-SAM)高光谱影像分类算法.方法 利用HA技术将高光谱影像从光谱维变换到能量谱特征维空间,并提取低次谐波分量及特征系数(谐波余项、相位和振幅),用特征系数组成的向量代替光谱向量,对高光谱影像进行SAM分类.结果 将SAM和HA-SAM同时应用于EO-1卫星的Hyperion高光谱影像分类,通过对比和分析,验证了HA-SAM的优越性,再选择AVIRIS(airborne visible infrared imaging spectrometer)高光谱影像对HA-SAM进行验证,结果表明该算法具有较强的普适性.结论 HA-SAM提高了传统SAM高光谱影像分类的效率和精度,而且适用性较强具有良好的应用前景.     

Estimating chlorophyll concentration in conifer needles with hyperspectral data: An assessment at the needle and canopy level

This investigation quantitatively links chlorophyll a + b (chl _a + b) concentration, a physiological marker of forest health condition, to hyperspectral observations of Jack Pine (Pinus banksiana), a dominant Boreal forest species. Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager (CASI) observations, in the visible-near infrared domain, were acquired over eight selected Jack Pine sites, near Sudbury, Ontario, between June and September of 2001. Supplementing the airborne campaigns was concurrent on-site collection of foliage samples for laboratory spectral and chemical measurements. The study first connected needle-level optical properties with pigment concentration through the inversion of radiative transfer models, LIBERTY and PROSPECT. Next, a chlorophyll sensitive optical index (R750/R710), was “scaled-up” using SAILH, a turbid medium canopy model, to estimate total pigment content at the canopy-level. Due to the potential confounding effects of open canopy structure and foliage clumping, the analysis accordingly focused on high spatial resolution CASI imagery (1 m) to visually target tree crowns, while accounting for shadowed areas. Chl _a + b concentration estimation from airborne spectral data using coupled leaf and canopy models was shown to be feasible with a root mean square error of 5.3 μg/cm², for a pigment range of 25.7 to 45.9 μg/cm². Such predictive algorithms using airborne-level data provide the methodology to be potentially scaled-up to satellite-level hyperspectral platforms for large scale monitoring of vegetation productivity and forest stand condition.     

Mapping of continuous floristic gradients in grasslands using hyperspectral imagery

Transitions between plant species assemblages are often continuous with the form of the transition dependent on the ‘slope’ of environmental gradients and on the style of self-organization in vegetation. Image segmentation can present misleading or even erroneous results if applied to continuous spatial changes in vegetation. Even methods that allow for multiple-class memberships of pixels presuppose the existence of ideal types of species assemblages that constitute mixtures—an assumption that does not fit the case of continua where any section of a gradient is as ‘pure’ as any other section like in modulations of grassland species composition.Thus, we attempted to spatially model floristic gradients in Bavarian meadows by extrapolating axes of an unconstrained ordination of species data. The models were based on high-resolution hyperspectral airborne imagery. We further modelled the distribution of plant functional response types (Ellenberg indicator values) and the cover values of selected species. The models were made with partial least squares (PLS) regression analyses. The realistic utility of the regression models was evaluated by full leave-one-out cross-validation.The modelled floristic gradients showed a considerable agreement with ground-based observations of floristic gradients (R²=0.71 and 0.66 for the first two axes of ordination). Apart from mapping the most important continuous floristic differences, we mapped gradients in the appearance of plant functional response groups as represented by averaged Ellenberg indicator values for soil pH (R²=0.76), water supply (R²=0.66) and nutrient supply (R²=0.75), while models for the cover of single species were weak.Compared to many other vegetation attributes, plant species composition is difficult to detect with remote sensing techniques. This is partly caused by a lack of compatibility between methods of vegetation ecology and remote sensing. We believe that the present study has the potential to increase compatibility as neither spectral nor vegetation information gets lost by a classifying step.     

A sun glint correction method for hyperspectral imagery containing areas with non-negligible water leaving NIR signal

Present sun glint removal methods overcorrect data collected in very shallow (less than 2 m) waters if the sensors used do not have bands in far infrared part of the spectrum. The reason is assuming of zero water leaving signal at near infrared (NIR) wavelengths. This assumption is not valid in very shallow waters, but also in areas where aquatic vegetation reaches water surface and in case of phytoplankton blooms that reach very high biomass or form surface scum. We propose an alternative method that can be used for successful glint removal even if the sensor does not have spectral bands beyond 800 nm. The proposed method utilises the presence and depth of the oxygen absorption feature near 760 nm as an indicator of glint contamination. This method allows removing sun glint from hyperspectral imagery preserving shape and magnitude of reflectance spectra in the cases where the negligible water leaving NIR signal is not valid.     

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

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

Effects of spatial and spectral resolution in estimating ecosystem α-diversity by satellite imagery

Remote sensing represents a powerful tool to derive quantitative and qualitative information about ecosystem biodiversity. In particular, since plant species richness is a fundamental indicator of biodiversity at the community and regional scales, attempts were made to predict species richness (spatial heterogeneity) by means of spectral heterogeneity. The possibility of using spectral variance of satellite images for predicting species richness is known as Spectral Variation Hypothesis. However, when using remotely sensed data, researchers are limited to specific scales of investigation. This paper aims to investigate the effects of scale (both as spatial and spectral resolution) when searching for a relation between spectral and spatial (related to plant species richness) heterogeneity, by using satellite data with different spatial and spectral resolution. Species composition was sampled within square plots of 100 m² nested in macroplots of 10,000 m². Spectral heterogeneity of each macroplot was calculated using satellite images with different spatial and spectral resolution: a Quickbird multispectral image (4 bands, spatial resolution of 3 m), an Aster multispectral image (first 9 bands used, spatial resolution of 15 m for bands 1 to 3 and 30 m for bands 4 to 9), an ortho-Landsat ETM+ multispectral image (bands 1 to 5 and band 7 used; spatial resolution, 30 m), a resampled 60 m Landsat ETM+ image.Quickbird image heterogeneity showed a statistically highly significant correlation with species richness (r = 0.69) while coarse resolution images showed contrasting results (r = 0.43, r = 0.67, and r = 0.69 considering the Aster, Landsat ETM+, and the resampled 60 m Landsat ETM+ images respectively). It should be stressed that spectral variability is scene and sensor dependent. Considering coarser spatial resolution images, in such a case even using SWIR Aster bands (i.e. the additional spectral information with respect to Quickbird image) such an image showed a very low power in catching spectral and thus spatial variability with respect to Landsat ETM+ imagery. Obviously coarser resolution data tend to have mixed pixel problems and hence less sensitive to spatial complexity. Thus, one might argue that using a finer pixel dimension should inevitably result in a higher level of detail. On the other hand, the spectral response from different land-cover features (and thus different species) in images with higher spectral resolution should exhibit higher complexity.Spectral Variation Hypothesis could be a basis for improving sampling designs and strategies for species inventory fieldwork. However, researchers must be aware on scale effects when measuring spectral (and thus spatial) heterogeneity and relating it to field data, hence considering the concept of scale not only related to a spatial framework but even to a spectral one.     

Utilizing SAR imagery and aquatic vegetation to map fresh and brackish lakes in the Brazilian Pantanal wetland

South America's Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland, contains hundreds of thousands of geochemically diverse lakes, ranging from dilute to brackish to saline in composition. These lakes form the backbone of the habitat that supports the highly diverse flora and fauna of the Pantanal, yet the natural processes that create and destroy them are largely unknown. The quantities and types of lakes in the Pantanal and their spatial distribution are therefore essential, but missing information required to understand the dynamics of the Pantanal ecosystem.RADARSAT S1 and S7, and JERS-1 imagery were integrated with field measurements of water geochemistry and characteristics of emergent aquatic vegetation for fresh and brackish lakes of the Nhecolândia region of the Brazilian Pantanal. A supervised classification was used to classify forest, pasture, bare soil, and lakes. A mask is then applied to produce an image of only lakes. The radar backscattering values were found to have a strong relationship with the emergent aquatic plant assemblages of the lakes—S1 imagery was the most useful. The plant assemblages, in turn, were observed to be strongly controlled by the total dissolved solids (TDS) and pH of the lakes. The relationships between backscattering values, plant assemblages, and geochemistry were then exploited to map the type and distribution of the lakes in the study area.Threshold rules were used to perform Level 1 and Level 2 classifications of the lakes. For the Level 1 classification, the σ^o values of RADARSAT S1 effectively separated brackish (10,000 > TDS > 1000 mg/kg) from fresh water lakes (TDS < 1000 mg/kg) with a total accuracy of 91%. For the Level 2 classification, the σ^o values of RADARSAT S1 effectively separated lakes into three geochemical groups: brackish (10,000 > TDS > 1000 mg/kg), hard with only Typha (1000 > TDS > 100 mg/kg), and fresh water lakes (TDS mg/kg < 100 mg/kg) with a total accuracy of 83%. Considering that the area is very remote and the lakes are very numerous, this may be the most feasible way to map lake type in the Pantanal.     

Evaluation of hyperspectral data for pasture estimate in the Brazilian Amazon using field and imaging spectrometers

We used two hyperspectral sensors at two different scales to test their potential to estimate biophysical properties of grazed pastures in Rondônia in the Brazilian Amazon. Using a field spectrometer, ten remotely sensed measurements (i.e., two vegetation indices, four fractions of spectral mixture analysis, and four spectral absorption features) were generated for two grass species, Brachiaria brizantha and Brachiaria decumbens. These measures were compared to above ground biomass, live and senesced biomass, and grass canopy water content. The sample size was 69 samples for field grass biophysical data and grass canopy reflectance. Water absorption measures between 1100 and 1250 nm had the highest correlations with above ground biomass, live biomass and canopy water content, while ligno-cellulose absorption measures between 2045 and 2218 nm were the best for estimating senesced biomass. These results suggest possible improvements on estimating grass measures using spectral absorption features derived from hyperspectral sensors. However, relationships were highly influenced by grass species architecture. B. decumbens, a more homogeneous, low growing species, had higher correlations between remotely sensed measures and biomass than B. brizantha, a more heterogeneous, vertically oriented species. The potential of using the Earth Observing-1 Hyperion data for pasture characterization was assessed and validated using field spectrometer and CCD camera data. Hyperion-derived NPV fraction provided better estimates of grass surface fraction compared to fractions generated from convolved ETM+/Landsat 7 data and minimized the problem of spectral ambiguity between NPV and Soil. The results suggest possible improvement of the quality of land-cover maps compared to maps made using multispectral sensors for the Amazon region.     

Spectrally segmented principal component analysis of hyperspectral imagery for mapping invasive plant species

Principal component analysis (PCA) is one of the most commonly adopted feature reduction techniques in remote sensing image analysis. However, it may overlook subtle but useful information if applied directly to the analysis of hyperspectral data, especially for discriminating between different vegetation types. In order to accurately map an invasive plant species (horse tamarind, Leucaena leucocephala) in southern Taiwan using Hyperion hyperspectral imagery, this study developed a spectrally segmented PCA based on the spectral characteristics of vegetation over different wavelength regions. The developed algorithm can not only reduce the dimensionality of hyperspectral imagery but also extracts helpful information for differentiating more effectively the target plant species from other vegetation types. Experiments conducted in this study demonstrated that the developed algorithm performs better than correlation‐based segmented principal component transformation (SPCT) and conventional PCA (overall accuracy: 86%, 76%, 66%; kappa value: 0.81, 0.69, 0.57) in detecting the target plant species, as well as mapping other vegetation covers.