Chapter 14 - Soil erosion analysis based on UAV and SPOT-6 satellite images

Abstract

The complexities of collapse pipes (CPs), mass movements (MMs), and gully heads (GHs) have given rise to the use of high-resolution data, including SPOT and UAV images. This research aimed to study the occurrence of CP, MM, and GH based on field evaluation and remote sensing. In the first stage, a field survey of the CP, MM, and GH was conducted to determine the number of landforms. UAV and SPOT images were acquired, and the erosion landforms (CP, MM, and GH) were digitized and extracted from these two images. Then, the red, green, and blue bands of the UAV and SPOT images were separated, and the spectral average of each band was compared for CP, MM, and GH using R software and the Tukey–Duncan test. Finally, the images were classified to determine object sensitivity for points-to-analysis for CP, MM, and GH. The results of the classification of UAV and SPOT satellite images showed an overall accuracy of 63.8% and 54.21%, respectively. Classifying CP, MM, and GH using UAV images was better than classifying SPOT satellite images. Overall, the use of UAV and SPOT-6 satellite images for soil erosion analysis offers a powerful and innovative approach to monitoring and managing this critical environmental issue.