Automated Classification of Urban Areas for Storm Water Management Using Aerial Photography and LiDAR

Abstract

AbstractDuring urbanization, undisturbed land surfaces are altered to create manufactured landscapes. Classifications of these new urban surfaces are utilized in urban planning, environmental monitoring, and other applications such as storm water management and roof runoff harvesting system design. To evaluate runoff volume and design storm water control devices, areas of different urban surfaces need to be identified and defined as pervious (e.g., undisturbed soils and landscaped areas) and impervious surfaces (e.g., roofs, roads, parking lots, sidewalks, driveways). This study presents a means to facilitate urban surface classification and quantification by analyzing high resolution aerial photographs in conjunction with light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data in a custom application for the geographic information system software. This software processes aerial photographs using red/green/blue (RGB) bands to produce a raster with saturation (S) values. In parallel, LiDAR data are used to distinguish th...