Quantitative evaluation of variations in rule-based classifications of land cover in urban neighbourhoods using WorldView-2 imagery

• Published in: ISPRS journal of photogrammetry and remote sensing Vol. 87; no. 100; pp. 205 - 215
• Main Authors: Belgiu, Mariana, Drǎguţ, Lucian, Strobl, Josef
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.01.2014; Elsevier
• Subjects: Accuracy; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Applied geophysics; Availability; Biological and medical sciences; Classifications; Comparison; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; Experiment; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects. Techniques; Image analysis; Image classification; Imagery; Internal geophysics; Land Cover; Libraries; OBIA; Operators; Tasks; Teledetection and vegetation maps; Urban; Urban; Accuracy; Comparison; Experiment; Land Cover; Image; OBIA; Availability; experimental studies; Human; Modification; libraries; accuracy; urban areas; classification; variability; image analysis; interpretation; imagery; Plant cover; land cover; high resolution
• ISSN: 0924-2716; 1872-8235
• DOI: 10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2013.11.007

The increasing availability of high resolution imagery has triggered the need for automated image analysis techniques, with reduced human intervention and reproducible analysis procedures. The knowledge gained in the past might be of use to achieving this goal, if systematically organized into libraries which would guide the image analysis procedure. In this study we aimed at evaluating the variability of digital classifications carried out by three experts who were all assigned the same interpretation task. Besides the three classifications performed by independent operators, we developed an additional rule-based classification that relied on the image classifications best practices found in the literature, and used it as a surrogate for libraries of object characteristics. The results showed statistically significant differences among all operators who classified the same reference imagery. The classifications carried out by the experts achieved satisfactory results when transferred to another area for extracting the same classes of interest, without modification of the developed rules.