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Remote sensing technology is a timely and cost-efficient method for leaf area index (LAI) estimation, especially for less accessible areas such as mangrove forests. Confounded by the poor penetrability of optical images, most previous studies focused on estimating the LAI of the main canopy, ignoring the understory. This study investigated the capability of multispectral Sentinel-2 (S2) imagery, airborne hyperspectral imagery (HSI), and airborne LiDAR data for overstory (OLe) and understory (ULe) LAI estimation of a multi-layered mangrove stand in Mai Po, Hong Kong, China. LiDAR data were employed to stratify the overstory and understory. Vegetation indices (VIs) and LiDAR metrics were generated as predictors to build regression models against the OLe and ULe with multiple parametric and non-parametric methods. The OLe model fitting results were typically better than ULe because of the dominant contribution of the overstory to the remotely sensed signal. A single red-edge VI derived from HSI data delivered the lowest RMSE of 0.12 and the highest R2adj of 0.79 for OLe model fitting. The synergetic use of LiDAR metrics and S2 VIs performed best for ULe model fitting with RMSE = 0.33, R2adj = 0.84. OLe estimation benefited from the high spatial and spectral resolution HSI that was found less confounded by the understory. In addition to their penetration attributes, LiDAR data could separately describe the upper and lower canopy, which reduced the noise from other components, thereby improving the ULe estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feature extraction has been a major area of research in remote sensing, and fractal feature is a natural characterization of complex objects across scales. Extending on the modified triangular prism (MTP) method, we systematically discuss three factors closely related to the estimation of fractal dimensions of remotely sensed images. They are namely the (F1) number of steps, (F2) step size, and (F3) estimation accuracy of the facets' areas of the triangular prisms. Differing from the existing improved algorithms that separately consider these factors, we simultaneously take all factors to construct three new algorithms, namely the modification of the eight-pixel algorithm, the four corner and the moving-average MTP. Numerical experiments based on 4000 generated images show their superior performances over existing algorithms: our algorithms not only overcome the limitation of image size suffered by existing algorithms but also obtain similar average fractal dimension with smaller standard deviation, only 50% for images with high fractal dimensions. In the case of real-life application, our algorithms more likely obtain fractal dimensions within the theoretical range. Thus, the fractal nature uncovered by our algorithms is more reasonable in quantifying the complexity of remotely sensed images. Despite the similar performance of these three new algorithms, the moving-average MTP can mitigate the sensitivity of the MTP to noise and extreme values. Based on the numerical and real-life case study, we check the effect of the three factors, (F1)–(F3), and demonstrate that these three factors can be simultaneously considered for improving the performance of the MTP method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel rough set approach to discover classification rules in real-valued spatial data in general and remotely sensed data in particular. A knowledge induction process is formulated to select optimal decision rules with a minimal set of features necessary and sufficient for a remote sensing classification task. The approach first converts a real-valued or integer-valued decision system into an interval-valued information system. A knowledge induction procedure is then formulated to discover all classification rules hidden in the information system. Two real-life applications are made to verify and substantiate the conceptual arguments. It demonstrates that the proposed approach can effectively discover in remotely sensed data the optimal spectral bands and optimal rule set for a classification task. It is also capable of unraveling critical spectral band(s) discerning certain classes. The framework paves the road for data mining in mixed spatial databases consisting of qualitative and quantitative data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the limitations of hardware devices, such as the sensors, processing capacity, and high accuracy altitude control equipment, traditional optical remote sensing (RS) imageries capture information regarding the same scene from mostly one single angle or a very small number of angles. Nowadays, with video satellites coming into service, obtaining imageries of the same scene from a more-or-less continuous array of angles has become a reality. In this paper, we analyze the differences between the traditional RS data and continuous multi-angle remote sensing (CMARS) data, and unravel the characteristics of the CMARS data. We study the advantages of using CMARS data for classification and try to capitalize on the complementarity of multi-angle information and, at the same time, to reduce the embedded redundancy. Our arguments are substantiated by real-life experiments on the employment of CMARS data in order to classify urban land covers while using a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. They show the superiority of CMARS data over the traditional data for classification. The overall accuracy may increase up to about 9% with CMARS data. Furthermore, we investigate the advantages and disadvantages of directly using the CMARS data, and how such data can be better utilized through the extraction of key features that characterize the variations of spectral reflectance along the entire angular array. This research lay the foundation for the use of CMARS data in future research and applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of land surface dynamics in heterogeneous landscapes often require satellite images with a high resolution, both in time and space. However, the design of satellite sensors often inherently limits the availability of such images. Images with high spatial resolution tend to have relatively low temporal resolution, and vice versa. Therefore, fusion of the two types of images provides a useful way to generate data high in both spatial and temporal resolutions. A Bayesian data fusion framework can produce the target high-resolution image based on a rigorous statistical foundation. However, existing Bayesian data fusion algorithms, such as STBDF (spatio-temporal Bayesian data fusion) -I and -II, do not fully incorporate the mixed information contained in low-spatial-resolution pixels, which in turn might limit their fusion ability in heterogeneous landscapes. To enhance the capability of existing STBDF models in handling heterogeneous areas, this study proposes two improved Bayesian data fusion approaches, coined ISTBDF-I and ISTBDF-II, which incorporate an unmixing-based algorithm into the existing STBDF framework. The performance of the proposed algorithms is visually and quantitatively compared with STBDF-II using simulated data and real satellite images. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms generate improved spatio-temporal-resolution images over STBDF-II, especially in heterogeneous areas. They shed light on the way to further enhance our fusion capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]