GF-1 Data Research Articles

Remote Sensing Identification of Urban Black-Odor Water Bodies Based on High-Resolution Images:A Case Study in Nanjing

The identification of urban black-odor water bodies plays an important role in monitoring and controlling black-odor water bodies. In 2016, a ground survey was conducted on the urban reach of Nanjing, and 55 samples from the West Shazhou River, Tuwei River, Xuanwu Lake, and Jinchuan River were obtained. The spectral characteristics of urban black-odor water bodies and other water bodies were analyzed. Recognition algorithms for GF-2 data were proposed in order to analyze the spatial distribution and environmental factors of urban black-odor water bodies. These algorithms were single-band thresholds based on reflectance of the green band, the difference between the blue band and green band, the ratio of the green band and red band, and the chromaticity value. The results indicate that:① compared with other types of water, the urban black-odor water has the smallest spectral slope in the range of 400-500 nm and lowest reflectivity, and the peaks and valleys are not prominent in the whole visible range; ② based on the verification, the accuracy of the ratio algorithm is the highest; and ③ using the ratio algorithm to calculate the GF-2 data of November 3, 2016, a total of 11 black river sections are identified. The entire length is 40.7 km, and the area is 0.749 km2.The black-odor water sections are distributed over a wide range but are not continuous, and they are concentrated in the densely populated areas. Domestic sewage, industrial waste water, and broken river channel are the main reasons.

Estimation of PM 2.5 concentration from GF-1 data in Kaifeng City

Estimation of PM 2.5 concentration from GF-1 data in Kaifeng City

A Method to Upscale the Leaf Area Index (LAI) Using GF-1 Data with the Assistance of MODIS Products in the Poyang Lake Watershed

A leaf area index is a key parameter reflecting the growth changes of vegetation and one of the most important canopy structural parameters for performing quantitative analyses of many ecological and climate models. Although using high-resolution satellite data and the radiative transfer model (RTM) can be used to generate high resolution LAI products, the RTM method has some problems because its temporal resolution is low, the input parameters are more appropriate for a physics model, and some parameters are difficult to obtain. Problems that urgently need to be solved include improving the temporal-spatial resolution for LAI products and localizing LAI products. To explore an applicable method for the high-resolution LAI products in a small basin and to improve the inversion accuracy, we propose an approach for GF-1 WFV LAI retrieval using MOD15A2 data and the measured LAI of the Poyang Lake watershed. Empirical models were used to retrieve high resolution LAI values, and the results show that these models are well designed for analyzing time-series satellite data. Good correlations were obtained between the NDVI of the GF-1 WFV data, the retrieved LAI values and the MODIS LAI data from samples acquired in both summer and winter. The exponential NDVI model obtained the best LAI value estimation results from the GF-1 WFV data (R2 = 0.697, RMSE = 1.100); the best synthetic validation of the RMSE is 0.883, close to the optimum model. Therefore, the retrieval results more fully reflect the growth process of the different features. This study proposed an upscale method for developing a high spatial resolution GF-1 satellite standard LAI products retrieval model using MODIS data. The proposed method will be helpful for efficiently improving the temporal-spatial resolution of LAI products to benefit the extraction of vegetation parameter information and dynamic land use monitoring.

The retrieval of aerosol over land surface from GF-1 16m camera with Deep Blue algorithm

As Chinese new satellite of high resolution for earth observation, the application of air pollution monitoring for GF-1 data is a key problem which need to be solved. In the paper, based on Hsu et al (2004) Deep Blue algorithm, by taking count of the characteristic of GF-1 16m camera, the contribution of land surface was removed by MODIS surface reflectance product, and aerosol optical depth (AOD) was retrieved from apparent reflectance in blue band. So, Deep Blue algorithm was applied to GF-1 16m camera successfully. Then, we collected GF-1 16m camera data over Beijing area between August and November, 2014, and the experiment of AOD was processed. It is obvious that the retrieved image showed the distribution of AOD well. At last, the AOD was validated by ground-based AOD data of AERONET/PHOTONS Beijing site. It is showed that there are good agreement between GF-1 AOD and AERONET/PHOTONS AOD, (R>0.7). But GF-1 AOD is obviously larger than ground-based AOD which may be brought by the difference of filter response function between MODIS and GF-1 camera.

Application of the GF-1 data to karst hydrogeological survey

Application of the GF-1 data to karst hydrogeological survey

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPLICATION OF MULTI-SENSOR REMOTE SENSING DATA IN QIN YONGCHENG SITE

Abstract. Remote sensing archaeology bases on the use of remote sensing images and interpretation of the principles. The historic relics and sites are resulted from human activities and have constantly caused influences on the soil component, moisture content, temperature, vegetation growth and so on. Based on this thought, this paper proposed a new remote sensing model and approach that integrates optical and thermal infrared remote sensing data for archaeology. Taking the Qin Yongcheng site as the example, this method conducts a comprehensive analysis of key factors affecting archaeological application, that is, LST estimated with Landsat TM data, soil brightness, humidity and greenness obtained from GF-1 data, and then interprets the potential site targets. By conducting the field verification, it is shown that the interpreted potential sites are well consisted with the field investigations and have a high interpretation precision. It can provide a guide for further archaeological research.

A Mixed Radiometric Normalization Method for Mosaicking of High-Resolution Satellite Imagery

A new mixed radiometric normalization (MRN) method is introduced in this paper which aims to eliminate the radiometric difference in image mosaicking. The radiometric normalization methods can be classified as the absolute and relative approaches in traditional solutions. Though the absolute methods could get the precise surface reflectance values of the images, rigorous conditions required for them are usually difficult to obtain, which makes the absolute methods impractical in many cases. The relative methods, which are simple and practicable, are more widely applied. However, the standard for designating the reference image needed for these methods is not unified. Moreover, the color error propagation and the two-body problems are common obstacles for the relative methods. The proposed MRN approach combines absolute and relative radiometric normalization methods, by which the advantages of both can be fully used and the limitations can be effectively avoided. First, suitable image after absolute radiometric calibration is selected as the reference image. Then, the invariant feature probability between the pixels of the target image and that of the reference image is obtained. Afterward, an adaptive local approach is adopted to obtain a suitable linear regression model for each block. Finally, a bilinear interpolation method is employed to obtain the radiometric calibration parameters for each pixel. Moreover, the CIELAB color space is adopted to evaluate the results quantitatively. Experimental results of ZY-3, GF-1, and GF-2 data indicate that the proposed method can eliminate the radiometric differences between images from the same or even different sensors.

Mapping regional cropping patterns by using GF-1 WFV sensor data

The successful launched Gaofen satellite no. 1 wide field-of-view (GF-1 WFV) camera is characterized by its high spatial resolution and may provide some potential for regional crop mapping. This study, taking the Bei'an City, Northeast China as the study area, aims to investigate the potential of GF-1 WFV images for crop identification and explore how to fully use its spectral, textural and temporal information to improve classification accuracy. In doing so, an object-based and Random Forest (RF) algorithm was used for crop mapping. The results showed that classification based on an optimized single temporal GF-1 image can achieve an overall accuracy of about 83%, and the addition of textural features can improve the accuracy by 8.14%. Moreover, the multi-temporal GF-1 data can produce a classification map of crops with an overall accuracy of 93.08% and the introduction of textural variables into multi-temporal GF-1 data can only increase the accuracy by about 1%, which suggests the importance of temporal information of GF-1 for crop mapping in comparison with single temporal data. By comparing classification results of GF-1 data with different feature inputs, it is concluded that GF-1 WFV data in general can meet the mapping efficiency and accuracy requirements of regional crop. But given the unique spectral characteristics of the GF-1 WFV imagery, the use of textual and temporal information is needed to yield a satisfactory accuracy.

Comparative analysis of GF-1, HJ-1, and Landsat-8 data for estimating the leaf area index of winter wheat

Using simultaneously collected remote sensing data and field measurements, this study firstly assessed the consistency and applicability of China high-resolution earth observation system satellite 1 (GF-1) wide field of view (WFV) camera, environment and disaster monitoring and forecasting satellite (HJ-1) charge coupled device (CCD), and Landsat-8 operational land imager (OLI) data for estimating the leaf area index (LAI) of winter wheat via reflectance and vegetation indices (VIs). The accuracies of these LAI estimates were then assessed through comparison with an empirical model and the PROSAIL radiative transfer model. The effects of radiation calibration, spectral response functions, and spatial resolution on discrepancies in the LAI estimates between the different sensors were also analyzed. The results yielded the following observations: (1) The correlation between reflectance from different sensors is relative good, with the adjusted coefficients of determination (R2) between 0.375 to 0.818. The differences in reflectance are ranging from 0.002 to 0.054. The correlation between VIs from different sensors is high with the R2 between 0.729 and 0.933. The differences in the VIs are ranging from 0.07 to 0.156. These results show the three sensors' images can all be used for cross calibration of the reflectance and VIs. (2) The four VIs from the three sensors are all demonstrated to be highly correlated with LAI (R2 between 0.703 and 0.849). The linear models associated with the 2-band enhanced vegetation index (EVI2), which feature the highest R2 (higher than 0.746) and the lowest root mean square errors (RMSE) (less than 0.21), were selected to estimate the winter wheat LAI. The accuracy of the estimated LAI from Landsat-8 was the highest, with the relative errors (RE) of 2.18% and an RMSE of 0.13, while the HJ-1 was the lowest, with the RE of 2.43% and the RMSE of 0.15. (3) The inversion errors in the different sensors' LAI estimates using the PROSAIL model are small. The accuracy of the GF-1 is the highest with the RE of 3.44%, and the RMSE of 0.22, whereas that of the HJ-1 is the lowest with the RE of 4.95%, and the RMSE of 0.26. (4) The effects of the spectral response function and radiation calibration for the different sensors are small and can be ignored, but the effects of spatial resolution are significant and must be taken into consideration in practical applications.

Extraction of Nitaria tangutorum dune in Minqin County based on GF-2 data

Extraction of Nitaria tangutorum dune in Minqin County based on GF-2 data

Deriving the Characteristic Scale for Effectively Monitoring Heavy Metal Stress in Rice by Assimilation of GF-1 Data with the WOFOST Model.

Accurate monitoring of heavy metal stress in crops is of great importance to assure agricultural productivity and food security, and remote sensing is an effective tool to address this problem. However, given that Earth observation instruments provide data at multiple scales, the choice of scale for use in such monitoring is challenging. This study focused on identifying the characteristic scale for effectively monitoring heavy metal stress in rice using the dry weight of roots (WRT) as the representative characteristic, which was obtained by assimilation of GF-1 data with the World Food Studies (WOFOST) model. We explored and quantified the effect of the important state variable LAI (leaf area index) at various spatial scales on the simulated rice WRT to find the critical scale for heavy metal stress monitoring using the statistical characteristics. Furthermore, a ratio analysis based on the varied heavy metal stress levels was conducted to identify the characteristic scale. Results indicated that the critical threshold for investigating the rice WRT in monitoring studies of heavy metal stress was larger than 64 m but smaller than 256 m. This finding represents a useful guideline for choosing the most appropriate imagery.

Using GF-2 Imagery and the Conditional Random Field Model for Urban Forest Cover Mapping

ABSTRACTGaofen-2 (GF-2), a Chinese new-generation satellite launched in August 2014, is providing high-resolution imagery for Earth observation. In this study, GF-2 imagery was employed for mapping forest cover in the core area of Tongzhou district, Beijing, China. The study analysed the performance of GF-2 data for identifying urban forest using a contextual classification model conditional random field (CRF) with Gabor texture features. The results show that the proposed method outperforms the traditional maximum likelihood classifier (MLC) by improving the producer’s accuracy of conifer and hardwood forest from 86.61% to 92.41%, and 86.59% to 91.57%, respectively. Overall, 87.43% of the area classified as forest by GF-2 classification spatially corresponded to areas of the reference forest map. The mapping results suggest that GF-2 imagery in concert with an efficient classification algorithm can be recommended for urban forest monitoring.

Combined Use of Airborne LiDAR and Satellite GF-1 Data to Estimate Leaf Area Index, Height, and Aboveground Biomass of Maize During Peak Growing Season

A fast and efficient estimation of crop biophysical parameters is significantly important in many agricultural, ecological, and meteorological applications. This study investigated the potential of airborne LiDAR and satellite GF-1 data for estimating three biophysical parameters of maize: 1) leaf area index (LAI); 2) average canopy height $\left({{{\bf H}_{{\bf canopy}}}} \right)$ ; and 3) aboveground biomass (AGB) during the peak growing season. First, classification data of maize was produced using normalized surface height, GF-1 NDVI, and terrain slope through decision-making. Second, four representative remotely sensed (RS) metrics which have been widely used in forest studies were tested to develop multiplicative models with similar shapes for estimating each biophysical parameter of maize, respectively. Third, the estimation results were obtained and validated through leave-one-out cross-validation method yielding a root-mean-square error (rmse) of 0.37 for LAI, 0.17 m for ${{\bf H}_{{\bf canopy}}}$ , and ${0}.{49}\,{\bf kg}/{{\bf m}^{2}}$ for AGB. Finally, contributions to the estimation models from each RS metric were analyzed, and spatial patterns of the biophysical parameters across the entire study area were mapped. Based on these results, the following conclusions were drawn. 1) The four selected metrics from airborne LiDAR and satellite GF-1 data are also applicable and promising in estimating biophysical parameters of maize during the peak growing season. 2) Multiplicative model was proved to be a fast, simple but effective alternative by combining LiDAR-derived structure information and spectral content from GF-1 NDVI. These conclusions provide valuable information for estimation of biophysical parameters of maize during the peak growing season.