An Automated Method for Global Urban Area Mapping by Integrating ASTER Satellite Images and GIS Data

TitleAn Automated Method for Global Urban Area Mapping by Integrating ASTER Satellite Images and GIS Data
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2013
AuthorsMiyazaki, H, Shao, X, Iwao, K, Shibasaki, R
JournalSelected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, IEEE Journal of
Volume6
Start Page1004-1019
Issue2
Date Published30 November 2012
ISSN1939-1404
KeywordsASTER/VNIR, Learning with Local and Global Consistency, logistic regression, urban area mapping
Abstract

We present an automated classification method for global urban area mapping by integrating satellite images taken by Visible and Near-Infrared Radiometer of Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection radiometer (ASTER/VNIR) and GIS data derived from existing urban area maps. The method consists of two steps. First, we extracted urban areas from ASTER/VNIR satellite images by using an iterative machine-learning classification method known as Learning with Local and Global Consistency (LLGC). This method is capable of automatically performing classification with a noisy training dataset, in our case, low-resolution urban maps. Therefore, we were able to perform supervised classification of ASTER/VNIR images without using labor-intensive visual interpretation. Second, we integrated the LLGC confidence map with other maps by logistic regression. The logistic regression complemented misclassifications in the LLGC map and provided useful information for further improvement of the model. In an experiment including 194 scenes of ASTER/VNIR images, the integrated maps were developed at a resolution of 15 m resolution, which is much finer than existing maps with resolutions of 300 to 1000 m. The maps achieved an overall accuracy of 90.0% and a kappa coefficient of 0.565, both of which are higher than or almost equal to the values for major existing global urban area maps.

DOI10.1109/JSTARS.2012.2226563