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This paper provides a comparative analysis of land use and land cover (LULC) changes among three study areas with different biophysical environments in the Brazilian Amazon at multiple scales, from per-pixel, polygon, census sector, to study area. Landsat images acquired in the years of 1990/1991, 1999/2000, and 2008/2010 were used to examine LULC change trajectories with the post-classification comparison approach. A classification system composed of six classes - forest, savanna, other-vegetation (secondary succession and plantations), agro-pasture, impervious surface, and water, was designed for this study. A hierarchical-based classification method was used to classify Landsat images into thematic maps. This research shows different spatiotemporal change patterns, composition and rates among the three study areas and indicates the importance of analyzing LULC change at multiple scales. The LULC change analysis over time for entire study areas provides an overall picture of change trends, but detailed change trajectories and their spatial distributions can be better examined at a per-pixel scale. The LULC change at the polygon scale provides the information of the changes in patch sizes over time, while the LULC change at census sector scale gives new insights on how human-induced activities (e.g., urban expansion, roads, and land use history) affect LULC change patterns and rates. This research indicates the necessity to implement change detection at multiple scales for better understanding the mechanisms of LULC change patterns and rates.

RESUMO

Impervious surface area (ISA) is an important parameter related to environmental change and socioeconomic conditions, and has been given increasing attention in the past two decades. However, mapping ISA using remote sensing data is still a challenge due to the variety and complexity of materials comprising ISA and the limitations of remote sensing data spectral and spatial resolution. This paper examines ISA mapping with Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) images in urban and urban-rural landscapes in the Brazilian Amazon. A fractional-based method and a per-pixel based method were used to map ISA distribution, and their results were evaluated with QuickBird images based on the 2010 Brazilian census at the sector scale of analysis for examining the mapping performance. This research showed that the fraction-based method improved the ISA estimation, especially in urban-rural frontiers and in a landscape with a small urban extent. Large errors were mainly located at the sites having ISA proportions of 0.2-0.4 in a census sector. Calibration with high spatial resolution data is valuable for improving Landsat-based ISA estimates.

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Land use/cover classification is one of the most important applications in remote sensing. However, mapping accurate land use/cover spatial distribution is a challenge, particularly in moist tropical regions, due to the complex biophysical environment and limitations of remote sensing data per se. This paper reviews experiments related to land use/cover classification in the Brazilian Amazon for a decade. Through comprehensive analysis of the classification results, it is concluded that spatial information inherent in remote sensing data plays an essential role in improving land use/cover classification. Incorporation of suitable textural images into multispectral bands and use of segmentation-based method are valuable ways to improve land use/cover classification, especially for high spatial resolution images. Data fusion of multi-resolution images within optical sensor data is vital for visual interpretation, but may not improve classification performance. In contrast, integration of optical and radar data did improve classification performance when the proper data fusion method was used. Of the classification algorithms available, the maximum likelihood classifier is still an important method for providing reasonably good accuracy, but nonparametric algorithms, such as classification tree analysis, has the potential to provide better results. However, they often require more time to achieve parametric optimization. Proper use of hierarchical-based methods is fundamental for developing accurate land use/cover classification, mainly from historical remotely sensed data.

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This research aims to improve land-cover classification accuracy in a moist tropical region in Brazil by examining the use of different remote sensing-derived variables and classification algorithms. Different scenarios based on Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) spectral data and derived vegetation indices and textural images, and different classification algorithms - maximum likelihood classification (MLC), artificial neural network (ANN), classification tree analysis (CTA), and object-based classification (OBC), were explored. The results indicated that a combination of vegetation indices as extra bands into Landsat TM multispectral bands did not improve the overall classification performance, but the combination of textural images was valuable for improving vegetation classification accuracy. In particular, the combination of both vegetation indices and textural images into TM multispectral bands improved overall classification accuracy by 5.6% and kappa coefficient by 6.25%. Comparison of the different classification algorithms indicated that CTA and ANN have poor classification performance in this research, but OBC improved primary forest and pasture classification accuracies. This research indicates that use of textural images or use of OBC are especially valuable for improving the vegetation classes such as upland and liana forest classes having complex stand structures and having relatively large patch sizes.

RESUMO

Complex forest structure and abundant tree species in the moist tropical regions often cause difficulties in classifying vegetation classes with remotely sensed data. This paper explores improvement in vegetation classification accuracies through a comparative study of different image combinations based on the integration of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and SPOT High Resolution Geometric (HRG) instrument data, as well as the combination of spectral signatures and textures. A maximum likelihood classifier was used to classify the different image combinations into thematic maps. This research indicated that data fusion based on HRG multispectral and panchromatic data slightly improved vegetation classification accuracies: a 3.1 to 4.6 percent increase in the kappa coefficient compared with the classification results based on original HRG or TM multispectral images. A combination of HRG spectral signatures and two textural images improved the kappa coefficient by 6.3 percent compared with pure HRG multispectral images. The textural images based on entropy or second-moment texture measures with a window size of 9 pixels × 9 pixels played an important role in improving vegetation classification accuracy. Overall, optical remote-sensing data are still insufficient for accurate vegetation classifications in the Amazon basin.

RESUMO

Traditional change detection approaches have been proven to be difficult in detecting vegetation changes in the moist tropical regions with multitemporal images. This paper explores the integration of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and SPOT High Resolution Geometric (HRG) instrument data for vegetation change detection in the Brazilian Amazon. A principal component analysis was used to integrate TM and HRG panchromatic data. Vegetation change/non-change was detected with the image differencing approach based on the TM and HRG fused image and the corresponding TM image. A rule-based approach was used to classify the TM and HRG multispectral images into thematic maps with three coarse land-cover classes: forest, non-forest vegetation, and non-vegetation lands. A hybrid approach combining image differencing and post-classification comparison was used to detect vegetation change trajectories. This research indicates promising vegetation change techniques, especially for vegetation gain and loss, even if very limited reference data are available.

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Muitas medidas de textura têm sido desenvolvidas e utilizadas para melhorar a acurácia de classificações de cobertura das terras, mas raramente têm-se avaliado a importância dessas medidas em estimativas de biomassa. Este trabalho utilizou dados Landsat TM para explorar as relações entre texturas de imagens TM e biomassa em Rondônia, Amazônia. Foram analisadas oito medidas de textura baseadas em matrizes de co-ocorrência de tons de cinza (i.e., média, variância, homogeneidade, contraste, dissimilaridade, entropia, segundo momento e correlação), associadas com sete diferentes tamanhos de janela (5x5, 7x7, 9x9, 11x11, 15x15, 19x19 e 25x25) e cinco bandas TM (TM 2, 3, 4, 5 e 7). Índices de correlação de Pearson foram utilizados para analisar as relações entre textura e biomassa. Esta pesquisa indica que a maioria das medidas de textura são pouco correlacionadas com biomassa de vegetação secundária, mas algumas medidas de textura têm correlação significativa com a biomassa de formações florestais maduras. Ao contrário, assinaturas espectrais de bandas TM são significativamente correlacionadas com a biomassa de vegetação secundária, mas fracamente correlacionadas com a biomassa de florestas maduras. Os resultados indicam que medidas de textura são importantes em estimativas de biomassa de floresta madura, mas relativamente menos importantes para estimativas de biomassa de vegetação secundária.

Assuntos

RESUMO

Many texture measures have been developed and used for improving land-cover classification accuracy, but rarely has research examined the role of textures in improving the performance of aboveground biomass estimations. The relationship between texture and biomass is poorly understood. This paper used Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data to explore relationships between TM image textures and aboveground biomass in Rondônia, Brazilian Amazon. Eight grey level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) based texture measures (i.e., mean, variance, homogeneity, contrast, dissimilarity, entropy, second moment, and correlation), associated with seven different window sizes (5x5, 7x7, 9x9, 11x11, 15x15, 19x19, and 25x25), and five TM bands (TM 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7) were analyzed. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to analyze texture and biomass relationships. This research indicates that most textures are weakly correlated with successional vegetation biomass, but some textures are significantly correlated with mature forest biomass. In contrast, TM spectral signatures are significantly correlated with successional vegetation biomass, but weakly correlated with mature forest biomass. Our findings imply that textures may be critical in improving mature forest biomass estimation, but relatively less important for successional vegetation biomass estimation.

Muitas medidas de textura têm sido desenvolvidas e utilizadas para melhorar a acurácia de classificações de cobertura das terras, mas raramente têm-se avaliado a importância dessas medidas em estimativas de biomassa. Este trabalho utilizou dados Landsat TM para explorar as relações entre texturas de imagens TM e biomassa em Rondônia, Amazônia. Foram analisadas oito medidas de textura baseadas em matrizes de co-ocorrência de tons de cinza (i.e., média, variância, homogeneidade, contraste, dissimilaridade, entropia, segundo momento e correlação), associadas com sete diferentes tamanhos de janela (5x5, 7x7, 9x9, 11x11, 15x15, 19x19 e 25x25) e cinco bandas TM (TM 2, 3, 4, 5 e 7). Índices de correlação de Pearson foram utilizados para analisar as relações entre textura e biomassa. Esta pesquisa indica que a maioria das medidas de textura são pouco correlacionadas com biomassa de vegetação secundária, mas algumas medidas de textura têm correlação significativa com a biomassa de formações florestais maduras. Ao contrário, assinaturas espectrais de bandas TM são significativamente correlacionadas com a biomassa de vegetação secundária, mas fracamente correlacionadas com a biomassa de florestas maduras. Os resultados indicam que medidas de textura são importantes em estimativas de biomassa de floresta madura, mas relativamente menos importantes para estimativas de biomassa de vegetação secundária.