Transcript Document

A Comparison of Pond Inventories Using Satellite and Airborne Sensors
Results
Objective
The overall objective was to determine how accurately each imagery source could locate and
inventory ponds in Jefferson county . The three sources of digital visible infrared imagery
(Landsat ETM+, Terra ASTER, and the Duncan Tech aerial camera) were compared. Two existing
water databases (KSWD and SWIMS) were compared as well. The objectives can be summarized:
1. What is the minimum spatial resolution of digital imagery that can accurately distinguish small
water bodies in Kansas?
2. How well does the classification of the digital imagery compare with the existing KSWD and
SWIMS databases?
3. To provide a recommendation on what digital imagery source would be the most cost effective
to use without a significant loss of accuracy.
Resolution
Differences
30 Meter Resolution
(Landsat ETM+)
15 Meter Resolution
(ASTER)
1 Meter Resolution
(Duncan Tech)
Study Area
Duncan Tech (DT) Digital Aerial Imagery: The 1-meter
Duncan Tech digital aerial camera acquires imagery with
three spectral bands:
An interesting, and somewhat unexpected result was that the total
estimated surface area actually increased with poorer (i.e., coarser)
spatial resolution. This is undoubtedly attributable to the large relative
size of the coarser pixels and the tendency of the image processing
methodology to identify mixed water pixels as belonging to the water
class.
As expected, the two surface water databases (KSWD and
SWIMS) grossly underestimated the number of water bodies, although,
to be fair, neither database was designed to be an inclusive map of all
water bodies. It does underscore, however, the potential danger of using
databases for purposes for which they were not designed – in this case
the identification and mapping of small, but environmentally important,
farm ponds.
Band 2
Red
0.63 - 0.69 μm
Band 3
NIR
0.76 - 0.90 μm
ASTER: ASTER is a multi-band sensor on board
NASA’s Terra satellite. For this study, only the three 15meter spectral bands were used:
ETM+
Band 1
Green
0.52 - 0.60 μm
Band 2
Red
0.63 - 0.69 μm
% of
Actual
Number
100%
Total Sfc. Area
(sq.km.)
179.9
% of
Actual
Area
100%
Band 3
NIR
0.76 - 0.86 μm
83
86%
202.0
112%
58
60%
231.4
128%
KSWD
3
3%
26.1
15%
SWIMS
1
1%
23.6
13%
Image date: 6 August 2001
Kansas Surface Water Database (KSWD)
The KSWD was clipped to the extent of the 44 Duncan Tech images. It was converted from a
raster layer to a polygon shapefile. The number of ponds and their surface area were then calculated.
Surface Water Information Management System (SWIMS)
This dataset was downloaded from DASC in shapefile format. The polygons were clipped to
the extent of the 44 DuncanTech scenes and the resulting shapefile was added to ArcMap, where the
number of ponds and surface area were calculated.
Commission
Error
Omission
Error
Terra ASTER
6
20
ETM+
1
Band 1
Blue/Green
0.45 - 0.52 μm
Band 2
Green
0.52 - 0.60 μm
Band 3
Red
0.63 - 0.69 μm
Band 4
NIR
0.76 - 0.90 μm
Band 5
Mid IR
1.55 - 1.75 μm
Band 6
Mid IR
2.08 - 2.35 μm
40
Explanation:
ASTER erroneously identified 6 non-existent ponds, but failed to
identify 20 ponds that were mapped using the DuncanTech imagery
•ETM+ erroneously identified 1 non-existent pond, but failed to
identify 40 ponds that were mapped using the DuncanTech imagery
ImageDate: 21 July 2001
Histogram Analysis
DuncanTech (1 m)
ASTER (15 m)
ETM+ (30 m)
40
40
40
30
30
30
20
20
20
10
10
10
S td. D e v = 3 743 .0 0
St d. Dev = 26 34. 15
S td. D e v = 3 024 .3 2
Mea n = 3990
M ea n = 1 855
Mea n = 2434
AREA
AREA
N = 83.00
AREA
Size Distribution of Water Bodies, by Sensor (Y-axis = # of ponds; X-axis = surface area, in square meters):
The histogram analysis graphically illustrates that even though the ASTER and ETM+ sensors detect a lower total number of ponds the total surface area
is greater than the Duncan Tech. This is because of the relatively coarse spatial resolution (15 meters and 30 meters, respectively) of those sensors.
S.L. Egbert, B.N. Mosiman, and P. Taylor. 2003. Creating a Pond Inventory in Kansas
Using Satellite and Airborne Sensors, Water and the Future of Kansas 21st Annual
Conference. Lawrence, Kansas. March 11, 2004.
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0
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92 50
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82 50
72 50
62 50
52 50
42 50
32 50
22 50
25 0
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N = 97 .00
0
12 50
N = 58.00
0
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DuncanTech Digital Aerial Imagery
Forty-four scenes from three different dates (12 April 2003, 9 May 2003, and 9 June 2003)
were mosaicked together using ERDAS Imagine. All water bodies were then digitized into a vector
layer using standard heads-up digitizing procedures. The resulting vector layer was then saved as a
polygon shapefile, which was then brought into ArcMap for calculation of the number of water bodies
and their surface areas. In addition a polygon layer was created that represented the extent of all the 44
DuncanTech images. This layer constituted the extent of the study sites within the study area and was
used to clip all other map layers.
Sensor
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Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+)
The ETM+ image (July 21, 2001) was processed in the same manner as the ASTER image,
first using an unsupervised classification procedure in ERDAS Imagine. Using the ISODATA
clustering algorithm, 100 spectral clusters were defined. The clusters that represented water were then
combined into a ‘Water’ class and the remaining classes were combined into a class called ‘NonWater.’ The result was a raster data set with two classes: water and non-water, that was then brought
into ArcMAP and converted to a polygon shapefile. Using the Editor extension, all polygons were
visually confirmed to represent actual water bodies. If a polygon did not represent a water body
(typically edge polygons), it was deleted. The result was a vector-format estimate of the water bodies.
Table: Commission and Omission Errors in Satellite ImageryDerived Estimates
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ASTER
The ASTER image (August 6, 2001) was processed using an unsupervised classification
procedure in ERDAS Imagine. Using the ISODATA clustering algorithm, 100 spectral clusters were
defined. The clusters that represented water were then combined into a ‘Water’ class and the remaining
classes were combined into a class called ‘Non-Water.’ The result was a raster data set with two
classes: water and non-water, that was then brought into ArcMAP and converted to a polygon
shapefile. Using the Editor extension, all polygons were visually confirmed to represent actual water
bodies. If a polygon did not represent a water body (typically edge polygons), it was deleted. The
result was a vector-format estimate of the water bodies. The reason for converting from raster to vector
format was to be able to calculate the surface area of each polygon. To facilitate extracting surface
area, a tool was developed using ArcObjects to extract each polygon area from the “shape” field within
the shapefile.
Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+): The Landsat 7
ETM+ imagery used for this project was a six-band dataset with
30-meter spatial resolution. (The thermal band was removed for
this analysis because of its 60 m spatial resolution):
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Duncan
Tech
Terra
ASTER
ETM+
Number
Water
Bodies
97
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Dataset
Data Processing
DOQQ for study area overlaid with 44
mosaicked DuncanTech scenes.
0.45 - 0.52 μm
44 scenes from three dates: 12 April 2003, 9
May 2003, and 9 June 2003
Duncan Tech
Jefferson County
Blue/Green
Table: Estimates of Number of Water Bodies and Total Surface Area
ASTER
Kansas
Band 1
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The Jefferson County landscape, with an annual precipitation of 35 inches per year, is dotted with small water
bodies containing only a few acre/feet of water to large water bodies such as Perry Lake and is typical of the
northeast Kansas landscape. The primary factor in choosing this area is the availability of rectified DuncanTech
imagery with coverage from the other four data sources. The study area is covered by 44 DuncanTech images
which have been mosaicked together. This imagery overlaps rectified imagery from the ASTER sensor as well as
Landsat ETM+. In addition the KSWD and SWIMS databases also have full coverage.
As expected, the number of ponds identified by each of the three
multispectral sensors (ETM+, ASTER, and DuncanTech) varied directly
with spatial resolution, with the greatest number of ponds being
identified by the sensor with the highest spatial resolution (DuncanTech
digital aerial camera). In particular, it is noteworthy that imagery from
Landsat’s ETM+ sensor, which is the most widely available low-cost
multispectral imagery source, successfully mapped only 60% of the
actual ponds in the study sample. Based on the results, it appears likely
that multispectral imagery with spatial resolution on the order of 4
meters (such as imagery from the Ikonos and Quickbird satellites) would
permit mapping small ponds with sufficient accuracy without incurring
the storage and processing overhead entailed in using 1-meter imagery.
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Artificial ponds exist throughout the Kansas landscape, far outnumbering natural water bodies, and they play a
substantial role in modifying the environment. For example, they trap sediment, thereby affecting biogeochemical
cycles, and they also provide habitat diversity and may provide a partial counterbalance to lost wetlands. For a
number of reasons, including their small size, their location primarily on private property, and variations in their
numbers and locations over time, small artificial ponds are often underrepresented on the digital map products and
databases normally used for hydrologic analyses. To address the issue of the underestimation of ponds, images
from three different satellite and airborne sensors were used to see how accurately they could locate and inventory
ponds in a study area Jefferson county. Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) 30m multispectral imagery,
Terra ASTER 15m multispectral imagery, and 1m multispectral imagery from an airborne digital camera were
used to create maps of water impoundments. For each study area, we computed the number of water bodies, their
size classes, and the total water surface area. Based on our assumption that the maps derived from the 1m
airborne digital imagery would provide the most detailed and accurate estimate of the actual number of ponds in
the study areas, we used them as the basis for comparison with the maps derived from Landsat and ASTER
imagery. Since it is generally impractical (due to cost and time considerations) to manually map small ponds from
detailed imagery, our objective was to determine by how much the number of ponds in the Kansas landscape is
underestimated using satellite imagery. In addition to comparing results of the digital airborne camera inventory
to maps from the two satellite sensors, we also compared them to two inventories of water bodies that were
previously created. The most recent is the Kansas Surface Water Database (KSWD), which was derived from
2000 and 2001Landsat ETM+ imagery at a minimum mapping unit of 1.5 acres and became available for use in
2003. The second inventory of water bodies is the Surface Waters Information Management System (SWIMS).
This database was created using the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) River Reach Files (RF3). The
RF3 files were developed from 1:500,000-scale NOAA aeronautical charts and 1:100,000-scale digital line graphs
developed by USGS.
Ponds resolved by sensor type
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Abstract