ASI: An artificial surface Index for Landsat 8 imagery

Remotely sensing the spatial extent of artificial surfaces is essential for understanding human footprints and evaluating anthropogenic impacts on the global environment and climate. However, since the spectral signatures of artificial surfaces are similar to other bright natural surfaces, it is sti...

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Main Authors: Yongquan Zhao, Zhe Zhu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2022-03-01
Series:International Journal of Applied Earth Observations and Geoinformation
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303243422000290
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author Yongquan Zhao
Zhe Zhu
author_facet Yongquan Zhao
Zhe Zhu
author_sort Yongquan Zhao
collection DOAJ
description Remotely sensing the spatial extent of artificial surfaces is essential for understanding human footprints and evaluating anthropogenic impacts on the global environment and climate. However, since the spectral signatures of artificial surfaces are similar to other bright natural surfaces, it is still a difficult task to separate artificial surfaces from other natural surfaces. Therefore, this study proposed a new Artificial Surface Index (ASI) to extract artificial surfaces based on the multispectral Landsat 8 imagery. We examined the performance of ASI in eight study areas with a variety of landscapes, including desert, coastal, inland urban and rural areas dominated by different climates and land cover categories. We also compared ASI with seven state-of-the-art built-up area or impervious surface indices that are developed for similar purposes. The qualitative and quantitative evaluations demonstrate that ASI has advantages in suppressing non-artificial surfaces with similar spectral signatures to artificial surfaces, such as deserts, bare soil, and harvested croplands. Furthermore, ASI improves the separability between artificial and non-artificial surfaces by 2% to 75% (measured by Jeffries–Matusita Distance), 13% to 164% (measured by Transformed Divergence), and 3% to 131% (measured by Spectral Discrimination Index) compared to the other seven indices across the eight study areas. The newly proposed ASI index has the potential to support a variety of human-activity-related studies, such as change detection of artificial surfaces, urban planning, land resource management at local, continental, and even global scales.
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spelling doaj.art-bfcd628003914161b170faa06b2294082023-01-05T04:31:07ZengElsevierInternational Journal of Applied Earth Observations and Geoinformation1569-84322022-03-01107102703ASI: An artificial surface Index for Landsat 8 imageryYongquan Zhao0Zhe Zhu1Corresponding author at: U-4087, 1376 Storrs Road, Storrs, CT 06269-4087, United States.; Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Connecticut, United StatesDepartment of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Connecticut, United StatesRemotely sensing the spatial extent of artificial surfaces is essential for understanding human footprints and evaluating anthropogenic impacts on the global environment and climate. However, since the spectral signatures of artificial surfaces are similar to other bright natural surfaces, it is still a difficult task to separate artificial surfaces from other natural surfaces. Therefore, this study proposed a new Artificial Surface Index (ASI) to extract artificial surfaces based on the multispectral Landsat 8 imagery. We examined the performance of ASI in eight study areas with a variety of landscapes, including desert, coastal, inland urban and rural areas dominated by different climates and land cover categories. We also compared ASI with seven state-of-the-art built-up area or impervious surface indices that are developed for similar purposes. The qualitative and quantitative evaluations demonstrate that ASI has advantages in suppressing non-artificial surfaces with similar spectral signatures to artificial surfaces, such as deserts, bare soil, and harvested croplands. Furthermore, ASI improves the separability between artificial and non-artificial surfaces by 2% to 75% (measured by Jeffries–Matusita Distance), 13% to 164% (measured by Transformed Divergence), and 3% to 131% (measured by Spectral Discrimination Index) compared to the other seven indices across the eight study areas. The newly proposed ASI index has the potential to support a variety of human-activity-related studies, such as change detection of artificial surfaces, urban planning, land resource management at local, continental, and even global scales.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303243422000290ASIArtificial surfaceBuild-up areaImpervious surfaceUrbanLandsat
spellingShingle Yongquan Zhao
Zhe Zhu
ASI: An artificial surface Index for Landsat 8 imagery
International Journal of Applied Earth Observations and Geoinformation
ASI
Artificial surface
Build-up area
Impervious surface
Urban
Landsat
title ASI: An artificial surface Index for Landsat 8 imagery
title_full ASI: An artificial surface Index for Landsat 8 imagery
title_fullStr ASI: An artificial surface Index for Landsat 8 imagery
title_full_unstemmed ASI: An artificial surface Index for Landsat 8 imagery
title_short ASI: An artificial surface Index for Landsat 8 imagery
title_sort asi an artificial surface index for landsat 8 imagery
topic ASI
Artificial surface
Build-up area
Impervious surface
Urban
Landsat
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303243422000290
work_keys_str_mv AT yongquanzhao asianartificialsurfaceindexforlandsat8imagery
AT zhezhu asianartificialsurfaceindexforlandsat8imagery