UAV-based Land Cover Mapping Technique for Monitoring Coastal Sand Dunes

Abstract

In recent years, coastal dune erosion has accelerated as various structures have been developed around the coastal dunes. A land cover map should be developed to identify the characteristics of sand dunes and to monitor the condition of sand dunes. The Korean Ministry of Environment’s land cover maps suffer from problems, such as limited classes, target areas, and durations. Thus, this study conducted experiments using RGB and multispectral images based on UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) over an approximately one-year cycle to create a land cover map of coastal dunes. RF (Random Forest) classifier was used for the analysis in accordance with the experimental region’s characteristics. The pixel- and object-based classification results obtained by using RGB and multispectral cameras were evaluated, respectively. The study results showed that object-based classification using multispectral images had the highest accuracy. Our results suggest that constant monitoring of coastal dunes can be performed effectively.