Fine-resolution Land Cover Map Research Articles

Spatio-temporal subpixel mapping with cloudy images

Spatio-temporal subpixel mapping (STSPM) has shown great potential for monitoring land surfaces, by generating land cover maps with both fine spatial and temporal resolutions. Selecting cloud-free fine spatial resolution images as ancillary data for STSPM can ensure that the temporal dependence term is measured for all subpixels, as in all current STSPM methods. However, such images are generally limited by cloud contamination, thereby resulting in great land cover changes between the available clear image and the desired fine spatial resolution land cover map. This research proposes a cloud-independent STSPM (C-STSPM) method to reconstruct the fine spatial resolution land cover maps by using cloudy images directly, which are assumed to have fewer land cover changes than temporally distant clear images. Cloud-independent spatio-temporal dependence was proposed in the presence of cloudy pixels. Experiments were performed under various cloud conditions involving 21 × 21 pairs of simulated cloudy images. The results demonstrate that by utilizing land cover information of clear pixels in cloudy images, more accurate prediction can be produced by C-STSPM compared to directly discarding those cloudy images, even if the number of cloud pixels increases to 95%. The advantage of C-STSPM is more evident when the clouds are distributed sparsely, which benefits from the increased number of clear pixels at the edge of the cloudy areas. Furthermore, a negative linear correlation was detected between the prediction accuracy and the ratio of overlapping cloudy pixels in the cloudy images. Moreover, the C-STSPM method helps to deal with abrupt changes occurred in the temporally distant cloud-free images by utilizing the temporally adjacent cloudy images with gradual land cover changes. Overall, the C-STSPM method provides a completely new solution to make fuller use of the widely existing cloudy images in multi-scale time-series images.

Super-resolution land cover mapping by deep learning

ABSTRACTSuper-resolution mapping (SRM) is a technique to estimate a fine spatial resolution land cover map from coarse spatial resolution fractional proportion images. SRM is often based explicitly on the use of a spatial pattern model that represents the land cover mosaic at the fine spatial resolution. Recently developed deep learning methods have considerable potential as an alternative approach for SRM, based on learning the spatial pattern of land cover from existing fine resolution data such as land cover maps. This letter proposes a deep learning-based SRM algorithm (DeepSRM). A deep convolutional neural network was first trained to estimate a fine resolution indicator image for each class from the coarse resolution fractional image, and all indicator maps were then combined to create the final fine resolution land cover map based on the maximal value strategy. The results of an experiment undertaken with simulated images show that DeepSRM was superior to conventional hard classification and a suite of popular SRM algorithms, yielding the most accurate land cover representation. Consequently, methods such as DeepSRM may help exploit the potential of remote sensing as a source of accurate land cover information.

Comparing the Effects of Temporal Features Derived From Synthetic Time-Series NDVI on Fine Land Cover Classification

Landsat data are an ideal data source for deriving fine-resolution land cover maps, and integrating temporal features extracted from time-series normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data achieves better performance. This paper compares the different roles of NDVI statistic features and phenology features in land cover classification at a finer scale. Time-series NDVI with fine resolution is first obtained by fusing Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager and moderate resolution imaging spectrometer (MODIS) NDVI via spatiotemporal fusion algorithm. Statistic and phenology features are then extracted from the fused data and added into random forest (RF) classifier. Performance under different classifiers and importance of phenology features are further discussed. Results show that both NDVI statistic features and phenology features have great effects on improving the classification accuracy after adding them to Landsat spectral bands. The overall accuracy is improved approximately 3% and 5%. Phenology features contain majority information of statistic features, and better reflect the seasonal variations of time-series NDVI, especially for vegetation types. Additionally, neural network classifier achieved similar trends of results with RF but lower accuracy, while support vector machine classifier seems to be poor in dealing with high-dimension temporal features, especially in regions with abundant vegetation. Among phenology features, maximum value, large integrated value, and base value have the highest importance scores, while start, end, and middle times of season provide extra information for identifying grass and nongrass.

Spatio-Temporal Super-Resolution Land Cover Mapping Based on Fuzzy C-Means Clustering

Super-resolution land cover mapping (SRM) is a method that aims to generate land cover maps with fine spatial resolutions from the original coarse spatial resolution remotely sensed image. The accuracy of the resultant land cover map produced by existing SRM methods is often limited by the errors of fraction images and the uncertainty of spatial pattern models. To address these limitations in this study, we proposed a fuzzy c-means clustering (FCM)-based spatio-temporal SRM (FCM_STSRM) model that combines the spectral, spatial, and temporal information into a single objective function. The spectral term is constructed with the FCM criterion, the spatial term is constructed with the maximal spatial dependence principle, and the temporal term is characterized by the land cover transition probabilities in the bitemporal land cover maps. The performance of the proposed FCM_STSRM method is assessed using data simulated from the National Land Cover Database dataset and real Landsat images. Results of the two experiments show that the proposed FCM_STSRM method can decrease the influence of fraction errors by directly using the original images as the input and the spatial pattern uncertainty by inheriting land cover information from the existing fine resolution land cover map. Compared with the hard classification and FCM_SRM method applied to mono-temporal images, the proposed FCM_STSRM method produced fine resolution land cover maps with high accuracy, thus showing the efficiency and potential of the novel approach for producing fine spatial resolution maps from coarse resolution remotely sensed images.

Generating a series of fine spatial and temporal resolution land cover maps by fusing coarse spatial resolution remotely sensed images and fine spatial resolution land cover maps

Studies of land cover dynamics would benefit greatly from the generation of land cover maps at both fine spatial and temporal resolutions. Fine spatial resolution images are usually acquired relatively infrequently, whereas coarse spatial resolution images may be acquired with a high repetition rate but may not capture the spatial detail of the land cover mosaic of the region of interest. Traditional image spatial–temporal fusion methods focus on the blending of pixel spectra reflectance values and do not directly provide land cover maps or information on land cover dynamics. In this research, a novel Spatial–Temporal remotely sensed Images and land cover Maps Fusion Model (STIMFM) is proposed to produce land cover maps at both fine spatial and temporal resolutions using a series of coarse spatial resolution images together with a few fine spatial resolution land cover maps that pre- and post-date the series of coarse spatial resolution images. STIMFM integrates both the spatial and temporal dependences of fine spatial resolution pixels and outputs a series of fine spatial–temporal resolution land cover maps instead of reflectance images, which can be used directly for studies of land cover dynamics. Here, three experiments based on simulated and real remotely sensed images were undertaken to evaluate the STIMFM for studies of land cover change. These experiments included comparative assessment of methods based on single-date image such as the super-resolution approaches (e.g., pixel swapping-based super-resolution mapping) and the state-of-the-art spatial–temporal fusion approach that used the Enhanced Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (ESTARFM) and the Flexible Spatiotemporal DAta Fusion model (FSDAF) to predict the fine-resolution images, in which the maximum likelihood classifier and the automated land cover updating approach based on integrated change detection and classification method were then applied to generate the fine-resolution land cover maps. Results show that the methods based on single-date image failed to predict the pixels of changed and unchanged land cover with high accuracy. The land cover maps that were obtained by classification of the reflectance images outputted from ESTARFM and FSDAF contained substantial misclassification, and the classification accuracy was lower for pixels of changed land cover than for pixels of unchanged land cover. In addition, STIMFM predicted fine spatial–temporal resolution land cover maps from a series of Landsat images and a few Google Earth images, to which ESTARFM and FSDAF that require correlation in reflectance bands in coarse and fine images cannot be applied. Notably, STIMFM generated higher accuracy for pixels of both changed and unchanged land cover in comparison with other methods.

Sub-Pixel Mapping Based on MAP Model and Spatial Attraction Theory for Remotely Sensed Image

There are a lot of mixed pixels in the remotely sensedimagery, which can seriously limit the utility of classification. Sub-pixel mapping (SPM) is a promising techniqueto solve this problem. It can generate a fine resolution land covermap from coarse resolution fractional images by predicting the spatiallocations of different land cover classes at sub-pixel scale.However, the accuracy and detail are always limited. Especiallywhen the scale factor is large among sub-pixels per pixel, thedata volumes are amplified and the sub-pixel distribution becomescomplex. The traditional methods are carried out only by the fractionsof land cover and the spatial dependence theory, which cannot satisfythe requirement of the SPM. For avoiding the above flaw, a newSPM method based on maximum a posteriori (MAP) model withsub-pixel/pixel spatial attraction theory aimed at the largescale factor is proposed. First, MAP is proposed to improve theresolution of the fractional images and obtain the initial sub-pixellocations; after that, the pixel swapping algorithm is used tooptimize and produce the final SPM result. In this paper, theproposed model is tested by a simple simulated font image and real remotelysensed imagery, which can both demonstrate that it can outperformtraditional algorithm with a more accurate sub-pixel scale land covermap.

An Iterative Interpolation Deconvolution Algorithm for Superresolution Land Cover Mapping

Superresolution mapping (SRM) is a method to produce a fine-spatial-resolution land cover map from coarse-spatial-resolution remotely sensed imagery. A popular approach for SRM is a two-step algorithm, which first increases the spatial resolution of coarse fraction images by interpolation and then determines class labels of fine-resolution pixels using the maximum a posteriori (MAP) principle. By constructing a new image formation process that establishes the relationship between the observed coarse-resolution fraction images and the latent fine-resolution land cover map, it is found that the MAP principle only matches with area-to-point interpolation algorithms and should be replaced by deconvolution if an area-to-area interpolation algorithm is to be applied. A novel iterative interpolation deconvolution (IID) SRM algorithm is proposed. The IID algorithm first interpolates coarse-resolution fraction images with an area-to-area interpolation algorithm and produces an initial fine-resolution land cover map by deconvolution. The fine-spatial-resolution land cover map is then updated by reconvolution, back-projection, and deconvolution iteratively until the final result is produced. The IID algorithm was evaluated with simulated shapes, simulated multispectral images, and degraded Landsat images, including comparison against three widely used SRM algorithms: pixel swapping, bilinear interpolation, and Hopfield neural network. Results show that the IID algorithm can reduce the impact of fraction errors and can preserve the patch continuity and the patch boundary smoothness simultaneously. Moreover, the IID algorithm produced fine-resolution land cover maps with higher accuracies than those produced by other SRM algorithms.

Assessing a Temporal Change Strategy for Sub-Pixel Land Cover Change Mapping from Multi-Scale Remote Sensing Imagery

Remotely sensed imagery is an attractive source of information for mapping and monitoring land cover. Fine spatial resolution imagery is typically acquired infrequently, but fine temporal resolution systems commonly provide coarse spatial resolution imagery. Sub-pixel land cover change mapping is a method that aims to use the advantages of these multiple spatial and temporal resolution sensing systems. This method produces fine spatial and temporal resolution land cover maps, by updating fine spatial resolution land cover maps using coarse spatial resolution remote sensing imagery. A critical issue for sub-pixel land cover change mapping is downscaling coarse spatial resolution fraction maps estimated by soft classification to a fine spatial resolution land cover map. The relationship between a historic fine spatial resolution map and a contemporary fine spatial resolution map to be estimated at a more recent date plays an important role in the downscaling procedure. A change strategy based on the assumption that the change for each land cover class in a coarse spatial resolution pixel is unidirectional was shown to be a promising means to describe this relationship. This paper aims to assess this change strategy by analyzing the factors that affect the accuracy of the change strategy, using six subsets of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) of USA. The results show that the spatial resolution of coarse pixels, the time interval of the previous fine resolution land cover map and the current coarse spatial resolution images, and the thematic resolution of the used land cover class scheme have considerable influence on the accuracy of the change strategy. The accuracy of the change strategy decreases with the coarsening of spatial resolution, an increase of time interval, and an increase of thematic resolution. The results also indicate that, when the historic land cover map has a 30 m resolution, like the NLCD, the average accuracy of the change strategy is still as high as 92% when the coarse spatial resolution data used had a resolution of ~1000 m, confirming the effectiveness of the change strategy used in sub-pixel land cover change mapping for use with popular remote sensing systems.

Super-Resolution Land Cover Mapping Using Multiscale Self-Similarity Redundancy

Super-resolution mapping (SRM) is a method to estimate a fine-resolution land cover map from coarse-resolution fraction images. SRM is an ill-posed problem and regularization terms are always needed to be introduced to well-pose the solution. The regularization term based on the maximal spatial dependence has been widely used in SRM; however, it is often too simple to provide detailed land cover pattern information. In this paper, a novel SRM algorithm, which adopts a new regularization term that is generated using the multiscale self-similarity redundancy feature in fraction images, is proposed. Based on the multiscale self-similarity redundancy, the proposed SRM algorithm magnifies the input coarse-resolution fraction images to the images with the same spatial resolution as the final fine-resolution map to be estimated. A coarse-to-fine strategy is applied to insure the stability of the magnifying process. During the magnifying process, support vector regression is used to learn the relationship between image patches in fraction images and the down-sampled images, which is applied to estimate the magnified fraction images. The new regularization term is then constructed based on the final magnified fraction images and used to provide additional information for SRM. The proposed SRM algorithm was compared with popular SRM algorithms using both synthetic and real images. Experimental results show that the multiscale self-similarity redundancy feature widely exists in fraction images, and provides valuable land cover information for SRM. Resultant fine-resolution land cover maps generated by the proposed SRM algorithm have higher accuracy than other algorithms.

Improvement of the Example-Regression-Based Super-Resolution Land Cover Mapping Algorithm

Super-resolution mapping (SRM) is a method for generating a fine-resolution land cover map from coarse-resolution fraction images. Example-regression-based SRM algorithms can estimate a fine-resolution land cover map with detailed spatial information by learning land cover spatial patterns from available land cover maps. Existing example-regression-based SRM algorithms are sensitive to fraction errors, and the results often include many linear artifacts and speckles. To overcome these shortcomings, this study proposes an improved example-regression-based SRM algorithm. The objective function of the proposed SRM algorithm comprises three terms. The first term is used to minimize the difference between the fraction values of the estimated fine-resolution land cover map and the input fraction values. The second term is used to maximize the class membership possibility values of the fine pixels in the result. The final term is used to make the result locally smooth. The proposed SRM algorithm is compared with several popular SRM algorithms using both synthetic and real fraction images. Experimental results indicate that the proposed SRM algorithm can produce results with less speckles and linear artifacts, more spatial details, smoother boundaries, and higher accuracies than the SRM results used for comparison.

Spectral–spatial based sub-pixel mapping of remotely sensed imagery with multi-scale spatial dependence

Sub-pixel mapping (SPM) is a technique used to obtain a land-cover map with a finer spatial resolution than input remotely sensed imagery. Spectral–spatial based SPM can directly apply original remote-sensing images as input to produce fine-resolution land-cover maps. However, the existing spectral–spatial based SPM algorithms only use the maximal spatial dependence principle (calculated at the sub-pixel scale) as the spatial term to describe the local spatial distribution of different land-cover features, which always results in an over-smoothed and discontinuous land-cover map. The spatial dependence can also be calculated at the coarse-pixel scale to maintain the holistic land-cover pattern information of the resultant fine-resolution land-cover map. In this article, a novel spectral–spatial based SPM algorithm with multi-scale spatial dependence is proposed to overcome the limitation in the existing spectral–spatial based SPM algorithms. The objective function of the proposed SPM algorithm is composed of three parts, namely spectral term, sub-pixel scale based spatial term, and coarse-pixel scale based spatial term. Synthetic multi-spectral, degraded Landsat multi-spectral and real IKONOS multi-spectral images are employed in the experiments to validate the performance of the proposed SPM algorithm. The proposed algorithm is evaluated visually and quantitatively by comparing with the hard-classification method and two traditional SRM algorithms including pixel-swapping (PS) and Markov-random-field (MRF) based SPM. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm can generate fine-resolution land-cover maps with higher accuracies and more detailed spatial information than other algorithms.

Fast Subpixel Mapping Algorithms for Subpixel Resolution Change Detection

Due to rapid changes on the Earth's surface, it is important to perform land cover change detection (CD) at a fine spatial and fine temporal resolution. However, remote sensing images with both fine spatial and temporal resolutions are commonly not available or, where available, may be expensive to obtain. This paper attempts to achieve fine spatial and temporal resolution land cover CD with a new computer technology based on subpixel mapping (SPM): The fine spatial resolution land cover maps (FRMs) are first predicted through SPM of the coarse spatial but fine temporal resolution images, and then, subpixel resolution CD is performed by comparison of class labels in the SPM results. For the first time, five fast SPM algorithms, including bilinear interpolation, bicubic interpolation, subpixel/pixel spatial attraction model, Kriging, and radial basis function interpolation methods, are proposed for subpixel resolution CD. The auxiliary information from the known FRM on one date is incorporated in SPM of coarse images on other dates to increase the CD accuracy. Based on the five fast SPM algorithms and the availability of the FRM, subpixels for each class are predicted by comparison of the estimated soft class values at the target fine spatial resolution and borrowing information from the FRM. Experiments demonstrate the feasibility of the five SPM algorithms using FRM in subpixel resolution CD. They are fast methods to achieve subpixel resolution CD.

Land Cover Change Detection at Subpixel Resolution With a Hopfield Neural Network

In this paper, a new subpixel resolution land cover change detection (LCCD) method based on the Hopfield neural network (HNN) is proposed. The new method borrows information from a known fine spatial resolution land cover map (FSRM) representing one date for subpixel mapping (SPM) from a coarse spatial resolution image on another, closer date. It is implemented by using the thematic information in the FSRM to modify the initialization of neuron values in the original HNN. The predicted SPM result was compared to the original FSRM to achieve subpixel resolution LCCD. The proposed method was compared with the original unmodified HNN method as well as six state-of-the-art methods for LCCD. To explore the effect of uncertainty in spectral unmixing, which mainly originates from spectral separability in the input, coarse image, and the point spread function (PSF) of the sensor, a set of synthetic multispectral images with different class separabilities and PSFs was used in experiments. It was found that the proposed LCCD method (i.e., HNN with an FSRM) can separate more real changes from noise and produce more accurate LCCD results than the state-of-the-art methods. The advantage of the proposed method is more evident when the class separability is small and the variance in the PSF is large, that is, the uncertainty in spectral unmixing is large. Furthermore, the utilization of an FSRM can expedite the HNN-based processing required for LCCD. The advantage of the proposed method was also validated by applying to a set of real Landsat-Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images.

Sub-pixel-scale Land Cover Map Updating by Integrating Change Detection and Sub-Pixel Mapping

Coarse-resolution remotely sensed images are high in temporal repetition rates, but their low spatial resolution limits their application in updating land cover maps. Our proposed land cover updating method involves the use of coarse-reso-lution images to update fine-resolution land cover maps. The method comprises change detection and sub-pixel mapping methods. The current coarse-resolution image is unmixed, and the previous fine-resolution map is spatially degraded to produce current and previous class fraction images. A change detection method is applied to these fraction images to create a fine-resolution binary change/non-change map. Finally, a sub-pixel mapping method is applied to update the fine-resolution pixel labels that are changed in the change/ non-change map. The proposed method is compared with a pixel-based classification method and two sub-pixel mapping methods. The proposed method maintains most of the spatial patterns of land cover classes that are unchanged in the previous and current images, whereas other methods cannot

Superresolution Land Cover Mapping With Multiscale Information by Fusing Local Smoothness Prior and Downscaled Coarse Fractions

Superresolution mapping (SRM) is a technique for translating original coarse-resolution fractions into a fine-resolution land cover map by dividing a coarse-resolution pixel into a few finer resolution pixels and determining their class labels. SRM can be solved by considering it a maximum a posteriori principle-based classification problem and by assigning each fine pixel as the class with the highest probability. Fine-pixel class membership probabilities (CMPs) can be calculated at two different scales: at the fine scale, in which the target fine pixel is compared with other fine pixels, and at the coarse scale, in which coarse fractions are downscaled into fine-pixel probabilities. The fine-scale CMP is suitable for representing local land cover features but not for maintaining global features. The coarse-scale CMP is the opposite of the fine-scale CMP. This paper proposes a novel multiscale approach to overcome this shortcoming by fusing the CMP calculated at both fine and coarse scales with the tau model. With the fused CMP, a simulated-annealing algorithm is applied to produce a fine-resolution land cover map. The land cover maps generated from QuickBird and IKONOS images and the National Land Cover Database were used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed SRM algorithms. The proposed SRM algorithms were evaluated visually and quantitatively by comparing them with several existing SRM algorithms. The results indicate that the accuracy of land cover maps at fine spatial resolution increased significantly compared with that obtained from all existing SRM algorithms.

A spatial–temporal Hopfield neural network approach for super-resolution land cover mapping with multi-temporal different resolution remotely sensed images

The mixed pixel problem affects the extraction of land cover information from remotely sensed images. Super-resolution mapping (SRM) can produce land cover maps with a finer spatial resolution than the remotely sensed images, and reduce the mixed pixel problem to some extent. Traditional SRMs solely adopt a single coarse-resolution image as input. Uncertainty always exists in resultant fine-resolution land cover maps, due to the lack of information about detailed land cover spatial patterns. The development of remote sensing technology has enabled the storage of a great amount of fine spatial resolution remotely sensed images. These data can provide fine-resolution land cover spatial information and are promising in reducing the SRM uncertainty. This paper presents a spatial–temporal Hopfield neural network (STHNN) based SRM, by employing both a current coarse-resolution image and a previous fine-resolution land cover map as input. STHNN considers the spatial information, as well as the temporal information of sub-pixel pairs by distinguishing the unchanged, decreased and increased land cover fractions in each coarse-resolution pixel, and uses different rules in labeling these sub-pixels. The proposed STHNN method was tested using synthetic images with different class fraction errors and real Landsat images, by comparing with pixel-based classification method and several popular SRM methods including pixel-swapping algorithm, Hopfield neural network based method and sub-pixel land cover change mapping method. Results show that STHNN outperforms pixel-based classification method, pixel-swapping algorithm and Hopfield neural network based model in most cases. The weight parameters of different STHNN spatial constraints, temporal constraints and fraction constraint have important functions in the STHNN performance. The heterogeneity degree of the previous map and the fraction images errors affect the STHNN accuracy, and can be served as guidances of selecting the optimal STHNN weight parameters.

Super-Resolution Land Cover Mapping with Spatial–Temporal Dependence by Integrating a Former Fine Resolution Map

Super-resolution mapping (SRM) is a technique to predict spatial locations of land cover classes at the subpixel scale within coarse resolution remotely sensed image pixels. Due to the lack of information about the spatial pattern of land covers, uncertainty always exists in resultant fine-resolution land cover maps. In the present work, by integrating a former fine-resolution land cover map, the spatial dependence used in existing SRM algorithms is extended into a novel spatial-temporal dependence used in the SRM algorithm (SRM_STD). The spatial-temporal dependence consists of the spatial dependences of former fine-resolution land cover map, the spatial dependences of latter coarse resolution fraction images, and the corresponding dependence between former and latter land cover maps. By considering the spatial-temporal dependences of subpixels, SRM_STD can inherit valuable land cover information from the former fine-resolution land cover map, and reduce the uncertainty of SRM to a large extent. The performance of the proposed SRM_STD algorithm is assessed using a subset of the National Land Cover Database datasets and land cover maps produced by Landsat imagery in an area of rapid urban expansion. The results of two experiments show that the former dependence has little influence on the result, whereas the corresponding dependence plays a crucial role on the result. With a large weight of corresponding dependence, the proposed SRM_STD algorithm can produce fine-resolution land cover maps with higher accuracy than those of hard classification and the pixel swapping algorithm.

Example-Based Super-Resolution Land Cover Mapping Using Support Vector Regression

Super-resolution mapping (SRM) is a promising technique to generate a fine resolution land cover map from coarse fractional images by predicting the spatial locations of different land cover classes at subpixel scale. In most cases, SRM is accomplished by using the spatial dependence principle, which is a simple method to describe the spatial patterns of different land cover classes. However, the spatial dependence principle used in existing SRM models does not fully reflect the real-world situations, making the resultant fine resolution land cover map often have uncertainty. In this paper, an example-based SRM model using support vector regression (SVR_SRM) was proposed. Without directly using an explicit formulation to describe the prior information about the subpixel spatial pattern, SVR_SRM generates a fine resolution land cover map from coarse fractional images, by learning the nonlinear relationships between the coarse fractional pixels and corresponding labeled subpixels from the selected best-match training data. Based on the experiments of two subset images of National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2001 and a subset of real hyperspectral Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) image, the performance of SVR_SRM was evaluated by comparing with the traditional pixel-based hard classification (HC) and several existing typical SRM algorithms. The results show that SVR_SRM can generate fine resolution land cover maps with more detailed spatial information and higher accuracy at different spatial scales.

Interpolation-based super-resolution land cover mapping

Super-resolution mapping (SRM) is a technique to produce a land cover map with finer spatial resolution by using fractional proportion images as input. A two-step SRM approach has been widely used. First, a fine-resolution indicator map is estimated for each class from the coarse-resolution fractional image. All indicator maps are then combined to create the final fine-resolution land cover map. In this letter, three popular interpolation methods, Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW), Spline and Kriging, as well as four indicator map combination strategies, including the maximal value strategy and the sequential assignment strategy with and without normalization, were assessed. Based on the application to two simulated images, the performance of all SRM algorithms was assessed. The results show that the two-step SRM approach can obtain smoother land cover maps than hard classification. An increase in zoom factor results in the appearance of numerous small patches and linear artefacts in the SRM results. The accuracies of Spline and Kriging are similar and are both higher than that of IDW. The maximal value strategy can generate a smoother land cover map than the sequential assignment strategy in most cases, and a normalizing indicator value has a mixed effect on the result.