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The aim of data conflation is to synergise geospatial information from different sources into a common framework, which can be realised using multivariate geostatistics. Recently, multiple-point geostatistics (MPG) has been proposed for data conflation. Instead of the variogram, MPG borrows structures from the training image, so the spatial correlation is characterised by multiple-point statistics. In pattern-based MPG, two sets of data can be integrated by utilising the secondary data as a locally varying mean (LVM). The training image provides a spatial correlation model and is incorporated to facilitate reproduction of similar local patterns in the predicted image. However, the current patternbased MPG gathers similar patterns based on a prototype class, which extracts spatial structures in an arbitrary way. In this paper, we proposed an improved pattern-based MPG for conflation of digital elevation models (DEMs). In this approach, a new strategy for forming prototype class is applied, which is based on the residual surface, vector ruggedness measure (VRM) and ridge valley class (RVC) of terrain data. The method was tested on the SRTM and GMTED2010 data. SRTM data at the spatial resolution of 3 arc-second was simulated by conflating sparse elevation point data and GMTED2010 data at a coarser spatial resolution of 7.5 arc-second. The proposed MPG method was compared with the traditional pattern-based MPG simulation. Several kriging predictors were applied to provide LVMs for MPG simulation. The result shows that the new method can achieve more precise prediction and retain more spatial details than the benchmarks.

Land surface deformation evidently exists in a newly-built high-speed railway in the southeast of China. In this study, we utilize the Small BAseline Subsets (SBAS)-Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (DInSAR) technique to detect land surface deformation along the railway. In this work, 40 Cosmo-SkyMed satellite images were selected to analyze the spatial distribution and velocity of the deformation in study area. 88 pairs of image with high coherence were firstly chosen with an appropriate threshold. These images were used to deduce the deformation velocity map and the variation in time series. This result can provide information for orbit correctness and ground control point (GCP) selection in the following steps. Then, more pairs of image were selected to tighten the constraint in time dimension, and to improve the final result by decreasing the phase unwrapping error. 171 combinations of SAR pairs were ultimately selected. Reliable GCPs were re-selected according to the previously derived deformation velocity map. Orbital residuals error was rectified using these GCPs, and nonlinear deformation components were estimated. Therefore, a more accurate surface deformation velocity map was produced. Precise geodetic leveling work was implemented in the meantime. We compared the leveling result with the geocoding SBAS product using the nearest neighbour method. The mean error and standard deviation of the error were respectively 0.82 mm and 4.17 mm. This result demonstrates the effectiveness of DInSAR technique for monitoring land surface deformation, which can serve as a reliable decision for supporting highspeed railway project design, construction, operation and maintenance.

This paper explores data-driven methods for quantifying and incorporating spatio-temporal contextual information in the mapping of land cover change. In remote sensing, area classes of land cover are typically mapped via statistical manipulation of feature-space measurement, e.g., reflectance data, and other ancillary data. Contextual information has been known to have the potential of increasing the accuracy of land cover classification and change detection, on the ground that land cover often exhibits spatial and temporal correlations and, as such, should be properly accommodated. In Bayesian methods, a priori probabilities of class occurrences can be considered as contextual information, which are combined with class-conditional probability densities to arrive at discriminant decisions with minimized misclassification. These prior probabilities may be made to vary locally to honor variability in the strengths of spatial dependence in class occurrences. For deriving local prior joint probabilities in land cover co-occurrences over time, a modified Expectation and Maximization (EM) algorithm was developed, in which a local window size can be adjusted in the light of spatial dependences inferred from class probability densities computed from spectral data. Empirical studies were performed using bi-temporal Landsat TM image subsets in Wuhan, which confirmed the comparative benefits of incorporating localized prior probabilities in land cover change detection.