‘Video Strip Mapping (VSM)’ for Time‐sequential Monitoring of Revegetation of a Pipeline Route

Abstract

A frequent requirement in post‐construction management of a land pipeline route is to detect revegetation status on a time-sequential basis (usually 5‐10 years). The principal advantage of video is the capacity to provide, in a cost‐effective manner, information required for such a very narrow and long strip target utilising the narrow view angle and dynamic stereo coverage. This paper reports that a video strip monitoring technique requiring solely end lap has been specifically developed with focus on such a narrow and long strip target (e.g. 20‐30m wide and several hundred km long). Such large‐scale video systems are often discussed as being inadequate for a change‐detection application due to geometric and radiometric calibration problems. In spite of such limitations, changes of major thematic land cover classes, particularly for the rapidly recovered target of a pipeline corridor, could be detected successfully by visual or quantitative methods and through further ‘patch dynamics’ analysis in a GIS environment. The results of this study indicate that such calibration problems are generally not a major drawback in acquiring change‐detection information in a practical operational application which requires mostly generalized thematic mapping of relatively simple classes. The results also indicate that Video Strip Mapping (VSM) could be extensively used for other examples of linear thematic mapping.