A Machine Learning Method for Inland Water Detection Using CYGNSS Data

The inland water bodies are critical components of ecosystems and hydrologic cycles. Thus, the water extent data are crucially important for hydrological and ecological studies. Due to its high temporal resolution, the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) has the potential for real-time inland water monitoring. In this letter, a high-resolution machine learning (ML) method for detecting inland water content using the CYGNSS data is implemented via the random undersampling boosted (RUSBoost) algorithm. The CYGNSS data of the year 2018 over the Congo and Amazon basins are gridded into 0.01° x 0.01° cells. The RUSBoost-based classifier is trained and tested with the CYGNSS data over the Congo basin. The data of the Amazon basin that is unknown to the classifier are then used for further evaluation. By only using the observables extracted from the CYGNSS data, the proposed technique is able to detect 95.4% and 93.3% of the water bodies over the Congo and Amazon basins, respectively. The performance of the RUSBoost-based classifier is also compared with an image processing-based inland water detection method. For the Congo and Amazon basins, the RUSBoost-based classifier has a 3.9 % and 14.2 % higher water detection accuracy, respectively.