An improved change detection method for tacking remote sensing time series trends

Abstract

ABSTRACT To improve the accuracy of detecting changes in remote sensing time series, an improved algorithm based on the combination of the antileakage least-squares spectral analysis (ALLSSA) algorithm and detecting breakpoints and estimating segments in trends (DBEST) algorithm is proposed and applied. The method uses the ALLSSA algorithm to decompose the time series and identify the trend components in the time series. Then, the trend segmentation mechanism of the DBEST algorithm is used to detect the changes in the trend component. In this paper, the improved algorithm is evaluated using a simulated time series data set, a time series data set with multiple change points, and data set based on the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) remote sensing time series. The results demonstrate that the average detection accuracies of the improved algorithm and DBEST algorithm are 98.4% and 85.2%, respectively, for the simulated time series data set. For the time series data set with multiple change points, the average root mean square errors (RMSEs) of the trend data for the improved and DBEST algorithms are 0.0386 and 0.0331, respectively. The mean normalized residual norms (MNRNs) of the improved and DBEST algorithms are 0.0252 and 0.0351, respectively. Finally, the improved algorithm, DBEST algorithm, and breaks for additive season and trend (BFAST) algorithm are applied to MODIS NDVI data, and their performance with remote sensing data is compared. The improved algorithm has higher detection accuracy and a smaller MNRN, indicating that more information is included in the trend and seasonal components. Therefore, the proposed method is useful for analysing trends in remote sensing time series data.