Sentinel-1A SAR and sentinel-2A MSI data fusion for urban ecosystem service mapping

Abstract

The two main objectives of this study are to evaluate the potential use and synergetic effects of ESA Sentinel-1A C-band SAR and Sentinel-2A MSI data for classification and mapping of ecologically important urban and peri-urban space and to introduce spatial characteristics into ecosystem service analyses based on remotely sensed data. Image resolutions between 5m and 20m provided by the Sentinel satellites introduce a new relevant spatial scale in-between high and medium resolution data at which not only urban areas but also their important hinterlands can be effectively and efficiently mapped. Sentinel-1/2 data fusion facilitates both the capture of ecologically relevant details while at the same time also enabling large-scale urban analyses that draw surrounding regions into consideration. The combined use of Sentinel-1A SAR in Interferometric Wide Swath mode and simulated Sentinel-2A MSI (APEX) data is being evaluated in a classification of the Zürich metropolitan area, Switzerland. The SAR image was terrain-corrected, speckle-filtered and co-registered to the simulated Sentinel-2 image. After radiometric and spatial resampling, the fused image stack was segmented and classified by SVM. After post-classification, landscape elements were investigated in terms of spatial characteristics and topological relations that are believed to influence ecosystem service supply and demand, i.e. area, contiguity, perimeter-to-area ratio and distance. Based on the classification results, ecosystem service supplies and demands accounting for spatial and topological patch characteristics were attributed to 14 land cover classes. The quantification of supply and demand values resulted in a positive ecosystem service budget for Zürich. The spatially adjusted service budgets and the original budgets are similar from a landscape perspective but deviate up to 50% on the patch level. The introduction of spatial and topological patch characteristics gives a more accurate impression of ecosystem service supply and demands and their distributions, thus enabling more detailed analyses in complex urban surroundings. The method and underlying data are considered suitable for urban land cover and ecosystem service mapping and the introduction of spatial aspects into relative ecosystem service valuation concepts is believed to add another important aspect in currently existing approaches.