A New Land Cover Map of Two Watersheds under Long-Term Environmental Monitoring in the Swedish Arctic Using Sentinel-2 Data

• Published in: Water
• Main Authors: Auda, Yves, Lundin, Erik, J, Gustafsson, Jonas, Pokrovsky, Oleg, S, Cazaurang, Simon, Orgogozo, Laurent
• Other Authors: Géosciences Environnement Toulouse (GET), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, Partenaires INRAE, Institut de mécanique des fluides de Toulouse (IMFT), Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP), Université de Toulouse (UT), ANR-19-CE46-0003,HiPerBorea,Calul haute performance pour la quantification des impacts du changement climatique sur les régions boréales(2019)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: permafrost; land cover; Sentinel-2 images; support vector machine; random forests; boreal forest; alpine tundra; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Abisko; Arctic; Climate change; Tundra
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04290497; https://hal.science/hal-04290497/document; https://hal.science/hal-04290497/file/Auda_et_al_2023.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15183311

International audience A land cover map of two arctic catchments near the Abisko Scientific Research Station was obtained based on a classification from a Sentinel-2 satellite image and a ground survey performed in July 2022. The two contiguous catchments, Miellajokka and Stordalen, are covered by various ecotypes, from boreal forest to alpine tundra and peatland. Two classification algorithms, support vector machine and random forest, were tested and gave very similar results. The percentage of correctly classified pixels was over 88% in both cases. The developed workflow relies solely on open-source software and acquired ground observations. Space organization was directed by the altitude as demonstrated by the intersection of the land cover with the topography. Comparison between this new land cover map and previous ones based on data acquired between 2008 and 2011 shows some trends in vegetation cover evolution in response to climate change in the considered area. This land cover map is key input data for permafrost modeling and, hence, for the quantification of climate change impacts in the studied area.