Automatically drawing vegetation classification maps using digital time‐lapse cameras in alpine ecosystems

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AbstractAlpine ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Monitoring the distribution of alpine vegetation is required to plan practical conservation activities. However, conventional field observations, airborne and satellite remote sensing are difficult in terms of coverage, cost and resolution in alpine areas. Ground‐based time‐lapse cameras have been used to observe the regions' snowmelt and vegetation phenology and offer significant advantages in terms of cost, resolution and frequency. However, they have not been used in research monitoring of vegetation distribution patterns. This study proposes a novel method for drawing georeferenced vegetation classification maps from ground‐based imagery of alpine regions. Our approach had two components: vegetation classification and georectification. The proposed vegetation classification method uses a pixel time series acquired from fall images, utilizing the fall leaf color patterns. We demonstrated that the performance of the vegetation classification could be improved using time‐lapse imagery and a Recurrent Neural Network. We also developed a novel method to accurately transform ground‐based images into georeferenced data. We propose the following approaches: (1) an automated procedure to acquire Ground Control Points and (2) a camera model that considers lens distortions for accurate georectification. We demonstrated that the proposed approach outperforms conventional methods, in addition to achieving sufficient accuracy to observe the vegetation distribution on a plant‐community scale. The evaluation revealed an F1 score and root‐mean‐square error of 0.937 and 3.4 m in the vegetation classification and georectification, respectively. Our results highlight the potential of inexpensive time‐lapse cameras to monitor the distribution of alpine vegetation. The proposed method can significantly contribute to the effective conservation planning of alpine ecosystems.