International Journal of Applied Earth Observation

and Geoinformation 7 (2005) 183–188

www.elsevier.com/locate/jag

Land-use classification using ASTER data

and self-organized neutral networks
Ma Jianwen 1,*, Hasi Bagan
The Laboratory of Remote Sensing Information Sciences,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Received 1 November 2002; accepted 4 January 2005

Abstract

Operationally AVHRR and TM/TM+ data were used and a supervised maximum likelihood classification (MLH) was applied
to depict land use changes in Beijing, providing basic maps for planning and development. With rapid growth of the city these
are helpful to deal with higher resolution data, whereas new classification algorithms produce land use maps more accurate. In
the paper, new sensor ASTER data and the Kohonen self-organized neural network feature map (KSOM) were tested.
The TSOM classified 7% more accurately than the maximum likelihood algorithm in general, and 50% more accurately for
the classes ‘residential area’ and ‘roads’. The results suggest that ASTER data and the Kohonen self-organized neural network
classification can be used as an alternative data and method in a land use update operational system.
# 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Land use; Operationally system; ASTER data; KSOM

1. Introduction
Since 1974, Landsat MSS data has been available
and composites of paper prints have been operation-
ally used to produce the land use map in the Beijing
area. Based on the development of satellite remote
sensing sensors, the MSS, TM, ETM+ series data,
SPOT series data and of CEBERS data (a Chinese
satellite) have been interpreted for monitor land use
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 64850643;
fax: +86 10 64850643.
E-mail address: Jianwen@irsa.ac.cn (M. Jianwen).
1
Member, IEEE.
and land cover change in that area. Both data and
paper land use products are of a scale 1–500,000, 1–
250,000 and 1–100,000. Classification items include
agriculture land, vegetation (forest, grass), water
(river, reservoir, channels), city and village and other
lands. Some seasonal land use products are also
available. All products are updated annually. Semi
automatic interpretation procedures are used: firstly
computer classification followed by interactive cor-
rections by technicians. The efficiency of updating the
product depends on accuracy of classification algo-
rithms and the availability of higher resolution
satellite data. At the moment, in general the result
accuracy of the most common classification algo-

0303-2434/$ – see front matter # 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jag.2005.01.003
184 M. Jianwen, H. Bagan / International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 7 (2005) 183–188

rithms, Supervised Maximum Likelihood Algorithm Table 1

The Aster data bands description
(SMLA), ranges from 70 to 80%. In July 2002, a
meeting was organized in the institute of remote Bands Spectrum Resolution
(mm) (m)
sensing applications (IRSA) to coordinate research
institutes and enterprises for the development and VNIR (visible to 1 0.52–0.60 15
near infrared) 2 0.63–0.69 15
work in some new techniques to improve the accuracy
3 0.76–0.86 15
of classification. Based on the framework, new sensor
ASTER data and the Kohonen self-organizing neural SWIR (short wave 4 1.60–1.70 30
infrared) 5 2.145–2.185 30
network feature map (KSOM) were tested. 6 2.235–2.225 30
The fundamental idea of the Kohonen self- 7 2.235–2.228 30
organizing neural network feature map is related to 8 2.295–2.365 30
constructing a hierarchic pattern searching system 9 2.36–2.43 30
using a special neural model, which is able to map a TIR (thermal 10 8.125–8.8475 90
given vector space in a labeled discrete neural infrared) 11 8.475–8.825 90
structure. As a result, it is able to preserve the relation 12 8.925–9.275 90
13 10.25–10.95 90
between neighbors regarding a given features and
14 10.95–11.65 90
finally each neuron i will be associated to a weight
vector wi in the defined feature map (Kohonen, 1990,
1993; Kohonen et al., 1996). area includes 2048
2048 pixels. The resolution of
The important properties of KSOM related to original image, bands 5, 7, 9, is 30 m, which were
image classification are: (1) topography preserving fused with the resultant PC1 of a principle component
map property which is used for progressive transformation of bands 2 and 3N (15m resolution) by
transmission of the image (Cristophe et al., 1998); using a wavelet fusion algorithm (Bagan et al., 2002).
(2) the ability to map a input vector space in a
labeled discrete neural network structure, so that is
able to preserve the relation between neighbors. In 3. KSOM algorithm
other words, if vectors are near to each other in the
input space, their projection in the output space will Let w j is the weighting vector transmitted from
be close as well and (3) the map can be corrected in input vector j to output vector i, and let x = {x1, x2, . . .,
the case that a space may not be mapped onto xn} be an input vector, n is the dimension, equal to the
another (Egmont-Petersen et al., 2002; Lampinen number of input satellite bands. Network training and
and Dmolsnder, 1996). testing includes fine tuning and coarse tuning. Coarse
tuning is the learning process, which is accomplished
by following steps (Ji, 2000):
2. New sensor ASTER data and preparation
Step 1. For each neuron, the synaptic coefficients are
New sensor ASTER are available from the EOS randomized to real numbers within the range
AM-1 platform that acquires high-resolution images. of 0.0–255.0 (numerical dynamic (DN) value
The primary goal of the ASTER mission is to obtain of satellite image data).
high-resolution image data in 14 channels over Step 2. Feed the network with an input vector x, the
targeted areas of the Earth’s surface, as well as distances of vector x to all neurons are
black-and-white stereo images with a revisit time computed by formula (1).
between 4 and 6 days. The ASTER data have 14
X n 0:5  
 
bands, including visible to near infrared (VNIR) band, aj ¼ ðxi  wi j Þ2 ¼
x  w 
j (1)
short wave infrared (SWIR) band and thermal infrared i¼1
(TIR) band, see Table 1. Step 3. The neurons that have the minimum distance
In the study ASTER data bands 1, 2, 3N, 5, 7, 9 to the input vector x among all the neurons are
were used. It was imaged on 4th June 2001. The study computed by (2)
 M. Jianwen, H. Bagan / International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 7 (2005) 183–188 185

wi j ðt þ 1Þ ¼ wi j ðtÞ þ aðtÞ b xi ðtÞ  wi j ðtÞ c ; if j 2 Nc j ðtÞ

(2)
wi j ðt þ 1Þ ¼ wi j ðtÞ; if j 2
= Nc j ðtÞ

where j 2= Nc j ðtÞ is the radius specifying the 2, 3N (15 resolution) and bands 5, 7, 9 (30 resolution)
set of nodes in the neighborhood of node j at of ASTER data, imaged on 4th June in 2001, are
the t time. a(t) is learning computer time with selected for this study. Fig. 1 is composite of bands 3N,
t decreasing, and the initial value is 2, 1. In Fig. 1 represent ring roads of Beijing. In
0.0 < a(t) < 1.0. order to have a consistent resolution before KSOM
Step 4. Feed new inputs and repeat steps 2 and 3, until processing, bands 5, 7, 9 (30m resolution) were fused
the network convergence. after performing a principle component transforma-
Step 5. Feed vectors with known class and labels, for tion of bands 2 and 3N (15m resolution) by using a
each neuron by majority voting. The learning wavelet fusion algorithm.
rate a(t) decreases gradually with time: Seven nodes (classes) are selected as input layers,
a(t) = a(t  1)
s, a value for s is selected whereas the output layer is a 25
25 two-dimension
between 0.5 and 0.9. structured KSOM network (Table 2). The training and
testing data correspond to a input nodes sampled from
bands 1, 2, 3N and 5, 7, 9. The initial training rate a is
After finishing, the imported data were divided into
set to 0.9 and reduces to 0.001 during iteration. The
none interactive classes. Every class is represented by
maximum number of iterations is set to 2500. The
its cluster center.
feedback neighbor initial value equals 14. The KSOM
Fine tuning was accomplished by Learning Vector
results of wi are finely tuned, and then image data are
Quantification (LVQ) (Kohonen, 1990, 1993) algo-
classified by applying KSOM (Fig. 2).
rithm as following steps:
The result of KSOM classification is shown in
Table 3. The total number of sample data equals 4722,
Step 1. A training vector x is randomly selected, c is
the number of correctly classified data equals 4518.
identified under the condition of minimum
The general accuracy is 95.68%. Classification
k x  wc k.
Step 2. Use of the LVQ algorithm: if x and wc fall in
the same catalogue, wc is changed by using
formula (3),
wc ðt þ 1Þ ¼ wc ðtÞ þ aðtÞ½xi ðtÞ  wc ðtÞ (3)
Otherwise, using formula (4)
wc ðt þ 1Þ ¼ wc ðtÞ  aðtÞ½xi ðtÞ  wc ðtÞ (4)
If i is not equal to c, wi is changed by (5),
wi ðt þ 1Þ ¼ wi ðtÞ (5)
The earning rate a(t) decreases with iteration
until 0.001.
Step 3. If the iteration teaches the pre-set calculation
time, it stops otherwise it returns to step 1.

4. ASTER data KSOM processing

The North East Beijing, covering the reserved 2008 Fig. 1. The composite of ASTER Band 3N, 2 and 1 of the north-east
Olympic ground, is selected as a testing area. Bands 1, Beijing.
186 M. Jianwen, H. Bagan / International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 7 (2005) 183–188

Table 2
Training and testing samples
Classes Land cover types Description Training data Testing data
1 Water River, pond 4132 847
2 Forest Planted, nature trees 2797 670
3 Grass Grass, winter wheat 2643 369
4 Farmland Agriculture 5670 1041
5 Roads Highway, city roads 2712 322
6 Urban Residents, commercial area 7761 1302
7 Other Construction area 1347 171
Total 27062 4722

Table 3
The matrix of KSOM classification result
Class Water Forest Grass Farmland Road Urban Other Accuracy (%)
Water 796 0 0 0 37 1 0 95.44
Forest 0 663 0 6 0 0 0 99.10
Grass 0 7 369 0 0 0 0 98.14
Farmland 0 0 0 1018 0 3 0 99.71
Road 49 0 0 0 276 50 0 73.60
Urban 2 0 0 17 9 1248 23 96.07
Other 0 0 0 0 0 0 148 100.00
Total 847 670 369 1041 322 1302 171
Ground reference (%) 93.98 98.96 100.00 97.79 85.71 95.85 86.55
Total samples 4722, correct classed samples 4518, general accuracy 95.68%.

accuracy of seven classes is listed in Table 3.
Reference, is based on five selected field checks from
a 1:10,000 air photo of June 2001. Values for water
(93.98%), forest (98.96%), grass (100.00%), farmland
(97.79%), road (85.71%), urban (95.85%) and other
(86.55%) are assessed by testing the KSOM data. The
KSOM image is presented in Fig. 3(1).
We next compared classification results of KSOM
with maximum likelihood classification (MLH). The
MLH image is made by using the same training
samples as KSOM, see Fig. 3(2) and the statistics
listed in Table 4. The KSOM image shows much more
clean and clear patterns in the urban area and the
urban highways. The KSOM image also has more
accuracy in classification of farmland (99.7%) than
that of MLH image (99.50%) comparing Tables 3 and
4. The total accuracy of KSOM equals 95.68%
whereas that of MLH equals 86.64% (Fig. 4).

Table 4
The matrix of MLH classification result
Class Water Forest Grass Farmland Road Urban Other Accuracy (%)
Water 750 0 0 0 17 0 0 97.78
Forest 0 603 0 0 0 0 0 100.00
Grass 0 67 368 0 0 1 0 84.40
Farmland 0 0 0 792 0 4 0 99.50
Road 97 0 0 17 305 187 0 50.33
Urban 0 0 1 204 0 1110 8 83.90
Other 0 0 0 28 0 0 163 85.34
Total 847 670 369 1041 322 1302 171
Ground reference (%) 88.55 90.00 99.73 76.08 94.72 85.25 95.32
Total samples 4722, correct classed samples 4091, general accuracy 86.64%.
 M. Jianwen, H. Bagan / International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 7 (2005) 183–188 187

Fig. 2. Feature map of KSOM of a 25
25 in resolution seven types

of classes: 1-W-water, 2-F-forest, 3-G-grass, 4-F-Farmland, 5-R- Fig. 4. The flow chart of KSOM networks feature map procedure.
roads, 6-U-urban, 7-O-other.

Fig. 3. Comparison between the results of SOFM (1) and MLH (2) classification algorithms.

5. Conclusions and discussion updating the databases and maps. TM/TM+, SPOT,
CEBER data normally used together with a maximum
At present, a Beijing land use change monitoring likelihood classification are applied in technician
system operates in the IRSA institute, Beijing, for interactive interpretation procedures. New data
188 M. Jianwen, H. Bagan / International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 7 (2005) 183–188
sources such as higher resolution ASTER sensor 14
bands and at temptation to adopt new algorithm
improving classification accuracy as a alternative for
the operation system.
The study shows that the quality of ASTER data is
good for land use mapping and that the KSOM
accomplished 95.68% accuracy in general whereas a
traditional classifier has a 86.64% accuracy, being 7%
more accurate using the same amount of training
samples. Even better results are achieved for city and
farmland classes.
The results suggested that the method tested in the
study can be used in the operational procedures.
Acknowledgements
This study was financially supported by the National
Nature Foundation (No. 40371086). The authors thank
reviewers for helping to improve the manuscript.
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