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Multi-resolution analysis of MODIS and ASTER satellite data for water classification

Article in Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering · October 2005

DOI: 10.1117/12.649848

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Multi-Resolution Analysis of MODIS and

ASTER Satellite Data for Water Classification

Corina Alecu, Simona Oancea

National Meteorological Administration

97 Soseaua Bucuresti-Ploiesti, 013686, Sector 1, Bucharest Romania corina.alecu@meteo.inmh.ro

Emily Bryant

Dartmouth Flood Observatory, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH 03755 USA

ABSTRACT

Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) are multi-spectral sensors embarked on the EOS AM-1 (TERRA) satellite platform. Both sensors operate in different spectral bands, but also with different pixel resolutions.

The overall goal of this paper is to classify MODIS data to get an estimation of water surface area, very useful in the post-crisis periods for the decision makers at all levels.

To develop the classification technique, the strategy was to obtain MODIS and ASTER data acquired at the same time over the same location, and use the ASTER data as “ground truth”. Two lakes in the Bihor County of Romania were chosen and satellite data from October 31, 2002 were utilized. From the ASTER data we created a detailed water mask to be used as ground truth for the MODIS water classification. The percent water image derived from ASTER was superimposed on the MODIS image. A supervised classification for water was performed on the 3-band MODIS image using the feature space algorithm. The water surface area as measured from the MODIS classification was about 16% more than the ASTER ground truth-value. Due to the constraint that high spatial resolution satellite images are low temporal resolution, there exists a need for a reliable method to obtain accurate information from medium resolution data.

This approach provided useful information concerning the water classification from different resolution data that could help in the estimation of water surface area from MODIS imagery.

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Flooding events are quite common in Romania. The estimation of the surfaces covered by water in the post-crisis periods is of real use for the decision makers at all levels. The classification problem of water cover surfaces from satellite images was approached in many applications. Even a binary classification of satellite images from optical domain seems to be simple enough comparing with a multi-class classification. But there exits many other constrains. The cloud cover in the flood time is important and the spectral characteristics of water while and after floods are quite different from the clear water and it is difficult to distinguish. Another difficulty in water surfaces estimation is represented by the ground

Alecu, C.; Oancea, S.; Bryant, E. (2006) Multi-Resolution Analysis of MODIS and ASTER Satellite Data for Water Classification.

In Emerging and Future Technologies for Space Based Operations Support to NATO Military Operations (pp. P2-1 – P2-8). Meeting Proceedings RTO-MP-RTB-SPSM-001, Poster 2. Neuilly-sur-Seine, France: RTO. Available from: http://www.rto.nato.int/abstracts.asp.

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