Water body extraction and change detection using time series: A case study of Lake Burdur, Turkey

Abstract

In this study, spatiotemporal changes in Lake Burdur from 1987 to 2011 were evaluated using multi-temporal Landsat TM and ETM+ images. Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification and spectral water indexing, including the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Modified NDWI (MNDWI) and Automated Water Extraction Index (AWEI), were used for extraction of surface water from image data. The spectral and spatial performance of each classifier was compared using Pearson's r, the Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). The accuracies of the SVM and satellite-derived indexes were tested using the RMSE. Overall, SVM followed by the MNDWI, NDWI and AWEI yielded the best result among all the techniques in terms of their spectral and spatial quality.Spatiotemporal changes of the lake based on the applied method reveal an intense decreasing trend in surface area between 1987 and 2011, especially from 1987 to 2000, when the lake lost approximately one fifth of its surface area compared to that in 1987. The results show the effectiveness of SVM and MNDWI-based surface water change detection, particularly in identifying changes between specified time intervals.