COUNTING ICE-WEDGE POLYGONS FROM SPACE: USE OF COMMERCIAL SATELLITE IMAGERY TO MONITOR CHANGING ARCTIC POLYGONAL TUNDRA
The microtopography associated with ice wedge polygons (IWPs) governs the Arctic ecosystem from local to regional scales due to the impacts on the flow and storage of water and therefore, vegetation and carbon. Increasing subsurface temperatures in Arctic permafrost landscapes cause differential gro...
Published in: | The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences |
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Copernicus Publications
2021
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIV-M-3-2021-67-2021 https://doaj.org/article/49372c22508d4ce3b25bb420f79e8e76 |
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:49372c22508d4ce3b25bb420f79e8e76 2023-05-15T14:50:27+02:00 COUNTING ICE-WEDGE POLYGONS FROM SPACE: USE OF COMMERCIAL SATELLITE IMAGERY TO MONITOR CHANGING ARCTIC POLYGONAL TUNDRA A. Hasan M. R. Udawalpola C. Witharana A. K. Liljedahl 2021-08-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIV-M-3-2021-67-2021 https://doaj.org/article/49372c22508d4ce3b25bb420f79e8e76 EN eng Copernicus Publications https://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XLIV-M-3-2021/67/2021/isprs-archives-XLIV-M-3-2021-67-2021.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1682-1750 https://doaj.org/toc/2194-9034 doi:10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIV-M-3-2021-67-2021 1682-1750 2194-9034 https://doaj.org/article/49372c22508d4ce3b25bb420f79e8e76 The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XLIV-M-3-2021, Pp 67-72 (2021) Technology T Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) TA1-2040 Applied optics. Photonics TA1501-1820 article 2021 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIV-M-3-2021-67-2021 2022-12-31T10:15:16Z The microtopography associated with ice wedge polygons (IWPs) governs the Arctic ecosystem from local to regional scales due to the impacts on the flow and storage of water and therefore, vegetation and carbon. Increasing subsurface temperatures in Arctic permafrost landscapes cause differential ground settlements followed by a series of adverse microtopographic transitions at sub decadal scale. The entire Arctic has been imaged at 0.5 m or finer resolution by commercial satellite sensors. Dramatic microtopographic transformation of low-centered into high-centered IWPs can be identified using sub-meter resolution commercial satellite imagery. In this exploratory study, we have employed a Deep Learning (DL)-based object detection and semantic segmentation method named the Mask R-CNN to automatically map IWPs from commercial satellite imagery. Different tundra vegetation types have distinct spectral, spatial, textural characteristics, which in turn decide the semantics of overlying IWPs. Landscape complexity translates to the image complexity, affecting DL model performances. Scarcity of labelled training images, inadequate training samples for some types of tundra and class imbalance stand as other key challenges in this study. We implemented image augmentation methods to introduce variety in the training data and trained models separately for tundra types. Augmentation methods show promising results but the models with separate tundra types seem to suffer from the lack of annotated data. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Ice permafrost Tundra wedge* Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences XLIV-M-3-2021 67 72 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Technology T Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) TA1-2040 Applied optics. Photonics TA1501-1820 |
spellingShingle |
Technology T Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) TA1-2040 Applied optics. Photonics TA1501-1820 A. Hasan M. R. Udawalpola C. Witharana A. K. Liljedahl COUNTING ICE-WEDGE POLYGONS FROM SPACE: USE OF COMMERCIAL SATELLITE IMAGERY TO MONITOR CHANGING ARCTIC POLYGONAL TUNDRA |
topic_facet |
Technology T Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) TA1-2040 Applied optics. Photonics TA1501-1820 |
description |
The microtopography associated with ice wedge polygons (IWPs) governs the Arctic ecosystem from local to regional scales due to the impacts on the flow and storage of water and therefore, vegetation and carbon. Increasing subsurface temperatures in Arctic permafrost landscapes cause differential ground settlements followed by a series of adverse microtopographic transitions at sub decadal scale. The entire Arctic has been imaged at 0.5 m or finer resolution by commercial satellite sensors. Dramatic microtopographic transformation of low-centered into high-centered IWPs can be identified using sub-meter resolution commercial satellite imagery. In this exploratory study, we have employed a Deep Learning (DL)-based object detection and semantic segmentation method named the Mask R-CNN to automatically map IWPs from commercial satellite imagery. Different tundra vegetation types have distinct spectral, spatial, textural characteristics, which in turn decide the semantics of overlying IWPs. Landscape complexity translates to the image complexity, affecting DL model performances. Scarcity of labelled training images, inadequate training samples for some types of tundra and class imbalance stand as other key challenges in this study. We implemented image augmentation methods to introduce variety in the training data and trained models separately for tundra types. Augmentation methods show promising results but the models with separate tundra types seem to suffer from the lack of annotated data. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
A. Hasan M. R. Udawalpola C. Witharana A. K. Liljedahl |
author_facet |
A. Hasan M. R. Udawalpola C. Witharana A. K. Liljedahl |
author_sort |
A. Hasan |
title |
COUNTING ICE-WEDGE POLYGONS FROM SPACE: USE OF COMMERCIAL SATELLITE IMAGERY TO MONITOR CHANGING ARCTIC POLYGONAL TUNDRA |
title_short |
COUNTING ICE-WEDGE POLYGONS FROM SPACE: USE OF COMMERCIAL SATELLITE IMAGERY TO MONITOR CHANGING ARCTIC POLYGONAL TUNDRA |
title_full |
COUNTING ICE-WEDGE POLYGONS FROM SPACE: USE OF COMMERCIAL SATELLITE IMAGERY TO MONITOR CHANGING ARCTIC POLYGONAL TUNDRA |
title_fullStr |
COUNTING ICE-WEDGE POLYGONS FROM SPACE: USE OF COMMERCIAL SATELLITE IMAGERY TO MONITOR CHANGING ARCTIC POLYGONAL TUNDRA |
title_full_unstemmed |
COUNTING ICE-WEDGE POLYGONS FROM SPACE: USE OF COMMERCIAL SATELLITE IMAGERY TO MONITOR CHANGING ARCTIC POLYGONAL TUNDRA |
title_sort |
counting ice-wedge polygons from space: use of commercial satellite imagery to monitor changing arctic polygonal tundra |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIV-M-3-2021-67-2021 https://doaj.org/article/49372c22508d4ce3b25bb420f79e8e76 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Ice permafrost Tundra wedge* |
genre_facet |
Arctic Ice permafrost Tundra wedge* |
op_source |
The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XLIV-M-3-2021, Pp 67-72 (2021) |
op_relation |
https://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XLIV-M-3-2021/67/2021/isprs-archives-XLIV-M-3-2021-67-2021.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1682-1750 https://doaj.org/toc/2194-9034 doi:10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIV-M-3-2021-67-2021 1682-1750 2194-9034 https://doaj.org/article/49372c22508d4ce3b25bb420f79e8e76 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIV-M-3-2021-67-2021 |
container_title |
The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences |
container_volume |
XLIV-M-3-2021 |
container_start_page |
67 |
op_container_end_page |
72 |
_version_ |
1766321480615854080 |