Airborne Remote Sensing

LiDAR = Light Detection and Ranging

Non-Forest Examples

Subsidence – Figure on the right shows how much this

thermokarst landscape sank after a fire
https://www.usgs.gov/news/arctic-tundra-fire-causes-widespread-permafrost-landscape-changes
Airborne Remote Sensing
LiDAR = Light Detection and Ranging
Non-Forest Examples

Urban Areas – this LiDAR map of NYC was used to assess prospects for rooftop
solar panel installation
http://stateenergyreport.com/2011/12/22/high-tech-solar-map-shows-energy-potential-for-every-building-in-new-york-city/
Airborne Remote Sensing
LiDAR = Light Detection and Ranging
Non-Forest Examples

Archaeology – LiDAR used to remove

forest cover to find archaeological sites in
the tropics (Mexico, here)
Fisher et al 2011 PE & RS
Airborne Remote Sensing
LiDAR = Light Detection and Ranging
Non-Forest Examples

Geomorphology – historical river meanders in Peru (Carnegie Airborne

Observatory) cao.carnegiescience.edu
Airborne Remote Sensing
LiDAR = Light Detection and Ranging
Ground-based LiDAR

Forest measurement with an Echidna®

http://www.bu.edu/tech/support/research/visualization/gallery/lidar/
Airborne Remote Sensing
Ground based LiDAR = Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS)

datumk.com
Airborne Remote Sensing
Ground based LiDAR = Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS)

nytimes.com Velodyne LiDAR via technologyreview.com

Airborne Remote Sensing
Quick aside about Spaceborne HSI and LiDAR
Hyperspectral Satellite Sensors
• Hyperion sensor on EO-1 Platform (NASA) – tasked, 30 m
resolution – Decommissioned Feb 2017
• Future – EnMAP (ESA) – launch in 2019?, tasked, 30 m resolution
• Future – HyspIRI (NASA) – maybe launch 2025? 30 m, continuous
collection (~ to Landsat)

LiDAR Satellite Sensors

• ICESat-1 Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) - 2003 -2009
• ICESat-2 Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) –
slated to launch in September, 2018
• Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation LiDAR (GEDI) – to be put
on the ISS in November, 2018
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR
• The hardest part of this type of work is getting data
• You either need both sensors flown on the same platform
(rare*) or you have to combine them yourself from different
collections.
• With medium to low resolution data, being a few meters off
in alignment isn’t terrible.
• With high resolution data (resolving individual trees, cars,
etc) being off by a few meters can matter a lot!

* As with all things RS, this is changing rapidly, so we discuss

this topic even though it’s not super common.
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and
LiDAR plus MESMA to (try to) map plant species
• The Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO) Beta system
integrates the CAO lidar with the hyperspectral sensor
AVIRIS.
• AVIRIS = 380 – 2510 nm in 10 nm bands
• Flown over Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve (JRBP),
California, in August, 2007.
• Pixels = 2.7 x 2.7 m (= almost 9’)
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus MESMA to (try to) map plant species
 Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus MESMA to (try to) map plant species
Species Common name Quercus agrifolia coast live oak
Acacia sp. Acacia Quercus douglasii blue oak
Acer macrophyllum Big-leaf maple Quercus durata leather oak
Adenostoma fasciculatum chemise Quercus kelloggii black oak
Aesculus californica buckeye Quercus lobata white oak
Alnus rhombifolia red alder Rhamnus californica coffeeberry
Arbutus menziesii madrone Rhamnus crocea red buckthorn
Artemisia californica sagebrush Salix lasiolepis arroyo willow
Baccharis pilularis
Ceanothus cuneatus
38 target species & cover types
coyotebrush
buck brush
Salix lucida
Salix exigua
silverleaf willow
shining willow
Ceanothus oliganthus jim brush Sambucus mexicana Elderberry
Centaurea solstitialis Yellow-star thistle Schoenoplectus acutus tule
Cercocarpus betuloides mountain mahogany Sequoia sempervirens coast redwood
Eriodictyon californicum yerba santa Toxicodendron diversilobum poison oak
Heteromeles arbutifolia toyon Typha latifolia cattails
Holodiscus discolor oceanspray Umbellularia californica bay laurel
Juglans californica walnut
NON SPECIES
Lepechinia calycina pitchersage
Wood soil – greenstone
Mimulus aurantiacus sticky monkeyflower
grass (dry) soil – serpentine
Pinus radiata Monterey pine
grass (wet) soil – sandstone
Prunus ilicifolia holly-leaved cherry
bunch grasses water
Pseudotsuga menziesii Douglas-fir
serpentine grasses algae
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus MESMA to (try to) map plant species
Identify endmember pixels in the field
 Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus MESMA to (try to) map plant species
Use HSI to calculate NDVI and mask non-veg pixels, use LiDAR to mask sides of tree canopies
 Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus MESMA to (try to) map plant species
Use LiDAR to separate image into different height classes + ancillary data to i.d. wetlands
 Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus MESMA to (try to) map plant species
Use Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) to separate out fractional cover
of different species/cover types (just to identify dominant ones).

image pixel
 Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus MESMA to (try to) map plant species

Use a ranked space filling algorithm to fill back in empty pixels.

Species A =

Species B =
?

Rank
1=
? 2=
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus MESMA to (try to) map plant species
Species map!
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus MESMA to (try to) map plant species
Time to ground truth
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus MESMA to (try to) map plant species
Accuracy Assessment! Field a+d
Validation Overall accuracy =
Allouche et al 2006
Data n
Present Absent a
Sensitivity =
(User’s accuracy) a + c
Present a b
MESMA d
Specificity =
Data (Producer’s accuracy) b+d
Absent c d

True Skill Statistic (TSS) = sensitivity +specificity − 1

Overall You don’t need to
Sensitivity Specificity TSS
The Accuracy
learn this stuff for
Numbers 91.3% 33.9% 95.0% 0.29 the Final Exam!
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus Object-Based Classification to map plant species in
South Africa (Baldeck et al 2014)
Workflow
1. Get fused hyperspectral + LiDAR imagery
2. Go out in the field and identify tree crowns & species
3. Use GEOBIA (eCognition) to identify tree crowns by NDVI
and vegetation height
4. Use supervised classification to classify pixels within each
tree crown, then pick the most common.
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus Object-Based Classification to map plant species in
South Africa (Baldeck et al 2014)
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using HSI and LiDAR
plus Object-Based Classification to map plant species in
South Africa (Baldeck et al 2014)
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using high spatial res
imagery and LiDAR plus Object-Based Classification for high
resolution land cover mapping (Chen et al 2009)

Quickbird (4 band, 0.6 m)

satellite imagery + LiDAR
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using high spatial res
imagery and LiDAR plus Object-Based Classification for high
resolution land cover mapping (Chen et al 2009)
DSM = digital surface model
(‘first returns’)
DTM = digital terrain model
(ground)
nDSM = DSM – DTM (building &
plant heights)
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using high spatial res
imagery and LiDAR plus Object-Based Classification for high
resolution land cover mapping (Chen et al 2009)
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using high spatial res
imagery and LiDAR plus Object-Based Classification for high
resolution land cover mapping (Chen et al 2009)

Use eCognition (GEOBIA) to extract objects, then overlay on LiDAR nDSM

Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using high spatial res
imagery and LiDAR plus Object-Based Classification for high
resolution land cover mapping (Chen et al 2009)

Map!
Airborne Remote Sensing
Combined Optical & LiDAR – example using high spatial res
imagery and LiDAR plus Object-Based Classification for high
resolution land cover mapping (Chen et al 2009)
Airborne Remote Sensing

In general, as computing power gets cheaper and more data

becomes available, the future of remote sensing (and
GIScience overall) will be focused on ‘fused’ approaches that
capitalize on many different data sources.
Airborne Remote Sensing
• Upcoming Plan…
• Wednesday (4/18) – talk about other cool satellites, etc.
• Friday (4/20) – Google Earth Engine demo with Gloria
• Monday (4/23) & Wednesday (4/25) – Radiative transfer
modeling and computational radiometry
• Friday (4/17) – Exam Prep & Course Evaluations – POST
Questions about exam on D2L Discussion Forum!
• Tuesday, 5/1, 12:45 pm GEO rm 126 (here) = FINAL
EXAM!