International Soil and Water Conservation Research 5 (2017) 17–25

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International Soil and Water Conservation Research

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Original Research Article

Methods for automatic identification and extraction of terraces from high MARK
spatial resolution satellite data (China-GF-1)☆
⁎
Yi Zhanga, Mingchang Shia,b, , Xin Zhaob, Xiaojing Wangb, Zhidong Luoc, Yuan Zhaoc
a
Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
b
Beijing Datum Technology Development CO., LTD., Beijing 100084, China
c
Monitoring Centre of Soil and Water Conservation, Ministry of Water Resources, Beijing 100053, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: Terraces are effective measures to control soil and water loss on hillslopes and play significant roles in water
Terraces storage, soil conservation and increasing of crop yield. With the launch of comprehensive management
Remote sensing engineering of transforming slopes into terraces in China, the area of terraces is continuously expanding. To
Edge characteristics plan for soil and water conservation in a scientific way and ensure rational soil and water conservation
Fourier transformation
measures, it is important to determine a timely and accurate inventory of the spatial distribution of the existing
China-GF-1
terraces. High-resolution satellite data (China GF-1) was used in this study to automatically identify and extract
terraces. The edge characteristics statistics algorithm, template-matching algorithm and the Fourier transfor-
mation algorithm were used. The results suggest that the template-matching algorithm, based on high gray
features of terraces, has higher identification accuracy and lower extraction miss rate, and is able to determines
the complete map spots, which works well for identification and extraction of typical terraces. The Fourier
transformation algorithm, based on the texture of the terraces, is easily affected by gray changes on the terrace
field surfaces and field ridges and is hardly reliable as a stand-alone technique for terrace identification. In this
study, we focused on an area near Hengshan County, Yulin of Shanxi Province, and performed field validation of
the terrace automatic identification and extraction algorithms. The results suggest that the accuracy of
automatic identification and extraction of the terraces is greater than 80%. The method proposed is helpful to
meet the requirements for planning and monitoring soil and water conservation projects.

1. Introduction conditions, ensure local food security, promote ecological restoration

Terrace is a specific type of landform that is constructed in the form
of strip benches or sections along contours on hilly slopes. Terraces are
an effective measure in controlling farmland soil and water loss, which
plays a significant role in water and soil conservation as well as grain
yields and has a long history in China. Currently, there are over 20
million ha terraces in China. The construction of terraces changes the
terrain condition, which can cause soil erosion, control soil and water
loss, intercept runoff and sediment, increase soil moisture, maintain
soil fertility, and significantly increase grain yield. Therefore, construc-
tion of terraces as basic farmland is not only an important soil and
water conservation measure to prevent farmland soil erosion but also
ensures the conversion of cropland to forest and grassland. It is a
breakthrough to end a vicious circle of current agriculture ecology and
promote ecological agricultural construction (Ma, Xue, & Liu, 2007).
The construction of terraces can significantly improve soil and water
and rehabilitation, and ensure ecological security.
In recent years, soil and water conservation advances in China are
leading soil conservation in a new period. The comprehensive control
of soil and water conservation, as well as integration with mountains,
forests, farms, and lakes, has been the focus of recent attention. Xinhua
reports that since soil and water conservation laws were issued in 2011,
the state investment in soil and water conservation has reached over
nineteen billion CNY, more than the sum of investment in soil and
water conservation in the “Tenth Five Year Plan” and “Eleventh Five
Year Plan”. Terraces are one of the most important measures for soil
and water conservation, and their number and distribution are
increasing with the expanding state investment and implementation.
In particular, the launch of comprehensive control projects transform-
ing slopes into terraces has caused the number of terraces to increase.
Therefore, quickly acquiring the number, distribution, and dynamic
construction of terraces across a large spatial extent has become an

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: zhyior@hotmail.com (Y. Zhang), shimc@dtgis.com (M. Shi).
☆
Peer review under responsibility of International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation and China Water and Power Press.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iswcr.2017.02.002
Received 13 September 2016; Received in revised form 20 February 2017; Accepted 20 February 2017
Available online 18 March 2017
2095-6339/ © 2017 International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation and China Water and Power Press. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an
open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
Y. Zhang et al. International Soil and Water Conservation Research 5 (2017) 17–25

urgent need in the supervision and management of comprehensive

control projects for all-level administrative departments of water and
soil conservation. For many decades, the monitoring and statistics of
indexes concerning terrace area and distribution have been mainly
based on artificial field investigations and surveys. These methods are
time and labor intensive, and easily produce errors, which cannot
compete with large-scale and continuous monitoring techniques. With
the development of new technology, the high spatial and time resolu-
tion of high-resolution satellite remote sensing image data (hereinafter
high-resolution RS image) has provided possibilities to continuously
monitor terraces over a large-scale. An increasing number of studies
focus on introducing high-resolution RS images to extract terrace

Higher brightness, but close to the surrounding bare soil

information. Currently, there are three methods for remote sensing
extraction of terraces, which include visual interpretation (Kou, Wang,
Wu, Zhang, & Du, 2005; Ma, 1992; Zhao, Ma, Yang, Li, & Wang,
2012), Fourier transformation (Wang, 2008; Yu, Liu, Zhang, & Li,
Fuzzy field ridges and narrow field surfaces 2008; Zhao et al., 2016; Zhao, 2013) and object-oriented classification
(Hou, 2013). The objective of this study are (1) Introducing the
knowledge of computer graphics and pattern recognition into identi-
fication of terraces. (2) Exploring the computer automatic identification
of terraces in new technologies.

2. Method and materials

Atypical Terrace

Inconspicuous

In this study, Hengshan County, Yulin of Shaanxi Province, has

been selected as a research area. The GF-1 satellite has been selected as
the data source, and the images were used for terrace identification and
extraction. Based on the interpretation characteristics of terraces in
Hengshan County, knowledge of computer graphics and pattern
recognition were used to extract terrace information. In addition, the
Fourier transformation algorithm, commonly used by previous studies,
was used on a large scale to automatically identify and extract terraces
Curve field ridges and wide field surfaces

using a computer.
The study area, Hengshan County of Yulin City, is approximately
4333 km2 and is located in the Loess Plateau of the northern Shaanxi
Province (latitude 37° 22 ' −38° 14'). Hengshan County is located on
the northern margin of the Loess Plateau and uses the Lu and Wuding
Rivers as the boundary. The eastern part of the Lu River and the
southern part of the Wuding River are fragmented and gullied, with
Higher brightness, larger contrast with the surrounding natural objects

loess hills and gully areas covered by thick loess. This region covers an
area of 2204 km2, accounting for approximately 70% of the total area of
Hengshan County. The total population is 36.1 million, of which there
is an agricultural population of 330,000 people. The terraces are the
basic type of agricultural land. Hengshan County has experienced soil
and water loss with its fragmented terrain, loose soil, scarce vegetation,
and infrequent but concentrated annual precipitation (Meng, Liu, &
Yang, 2008).
Typical and Atypical Terrace Samples on GF-1 2 m/8 m Fused Image.

Oval field ridges and wide field surfaces

The GF-1 remote sensing image is from July 2014 and was already
preprocessed with atmospheric correction and ortho-rectification. In
the area of Hengshan County, Yulin of Shaanxi Province, with the area
of 1225 km2, the Level 1 data of landuse types from 2014 has been
applied as auxiliary data to assist in comparison of the automatic
terrace identification and extraction. The GF-1 satellite was launched
on April 26, 2013, and has been orbiting for almost 4 years. The GF-1
Typical Terrace

satellite has 2 sets of 2-meter resolution panchromatic/8-meter

conspicuous

resolution multispectral cameras and 4 sets of 16-meter resolution

multispectral cameras. The designed service life is approximately 5–8
years.
Spectral characteristics

3. Terrace interpretation characteristics on remote sensing

Boundary features

images
Texture features
Type of Terrace

Sample images

Terraces are a complex type of surface feature that comprise several

connected farmlands, are designed according to the trends of the
Table 1

terrain, and commonly have an oval, strip, or irregular polygonal

shape. Field surfaces of terraces in remote sensing images have high-

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Y. Zhang et al. International Soil and Water Conservation Research 5 (2017) 17–25

Fig. 1. Technical Workflow of the Edge Characteristics Statistics for Terrace Identification.

Fig. 2. Local Picture for Edge Detection. (a) GF-1 2 m/8 m Fused Image. (b) Canny Edge Detection Result. (c) Frame Result of Terrace Area of Interest.

brightness because they are exposed to the ground, but the field ridges
of terraces are expressed as low-brightness lines. The field surface and
ridges alternate, showing special textural features. In this paper, the
presented algorithm is based on gray and textural features of the
terraces on high-resolution RS images. Based on the terrace features on
the high-resolution remote sensing image, the features can be classified
into the following two types: typical terrace and atypical terrace. The
typical terrace is the one that has obvious textural features on the 2 m
resolution remote sensing image, which is the focus of this study. An
atypical terrace is the one that does not have obvious textural features
and comprises a narrow and broken field surface, with fuzzy bound-
aries between the field surface and field ridge, as shown in Table 1.
4. Identification terraces form the high resolution satellite
images
In this study, we use the edge feature statistic algorithm and the
template-matching algorithm to automatically identify and extract
terraces. Based on the previous studies, we compare our results with
the existing Fourier transform algorithm. Then, we discuss and

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Y. Zhang et al.
Fig. 3. The Relationship between the Remote Sensing Image, Terrace Template Training Area, and a Sample.
Fig. 4. Terrace identification effect picture.
compare the accuracy, the completeness of the extracted terrace's
numbers, and the consistency of the extracted terrace's fields between
the three methods.
4.1. Statistics algorithm for edge characteristics
Preprocessing and edge detection was performed on the high-
resolution remote sensing image to generate a binary image. The land-
use type data were applied to frame the interested area for terrace
identification, and the terrace sample training area was selected based
on certain requirements. In the terrace sample training area, a window
search was conducted, and statistics were collected on the effective
number of edge lines in the window. Using this information, the
window size for terrace identification was determined as well as the
feature threshold of the effective edge line number to establish a terrace
identification template based on the effective number of edge lines as a
template vector. Then, the template size was applied to classify samples
on the binary image. The template was used to scan the samples one by
one on the binary image to identify terraces and merge the terrace
samples. In addition, this information was used for shape optimization,
which helped complete the automatic identification of terraces. The
technical workflow is shown in Fig. 1.
4.1.1. Edge detection
Edge detection of images provides a basis for terrace identification.
The features of a binary image include a little noise and narrow and
smooth edge lines. A comparison of the binary image using the Roberts
operator, Sobel operator, Prewitt operator, Laplace operator, and
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International Soil and Water Conservation Research 5 (2017) 17–25
Canny operator (Jia, 2000; Li, Tang, & Jiang, 2007) showed that the
Canny operator returns the best result. It is more sensitive to gray
changes in the high-resolution RS image, the resulting binary image
has little noise, and the edge width is narrow, smooth, and continuous.
The land-use data were used to frame the terrace area on the binary
image, to reduce data size, and reduce disturbances to the algorithm
from other ground objects with similar interpreted features, as shown
in Fig. 2. The binary raster image can also be called a binary search
image.
4.1.2. Template establishment
The sample is the unit used to identify terraces, following the
terrace template training area and binary search image. The sample is
also the statistical unit to determine the effective edge line feature
threshold. The template size and effective edge line feature threshold
are primary parameters for terrace identification, which were deter-
mined from the training of terrace template training area.
(1) Template Source. The acquisition of remote sensing images is often
affected by the atmosphere, time, light, and angle. There are
differences in brightness and color between images. Therefore,
the template should contain the terrace features of the target
image, and the terrace identification template is created directly on
the search image.
(2) Determination principle of terrace template training area. A
related study has shown that the overall classification accuracy
increases with an increasing amount of training samples, based on
the feature primitive classification (Wang, Zhang, & Cui, 2015).
The number of terrace sample training areas in one high-resolu-
tion remote sensing image should be greater than 3, have a fixed
size, and cover all types of typical terraces in the image. The terrace
area in the training area should be between 30% and 60% of the
total training area.
(3) Determination principle of template size. The template size is not
fixed; rather, it is commonly an empirical value, which is a critical
factor in the algorithm identification. In general, the template size
is determined by the terrace shape, field surface width, and spatial
resolution of the image. If the template size is too large, the
disturbance of other ground objects will be enlarged during the
terrace identification. On the other hand, if the template is too
small, the sensitivity of the template vector will be reduced, leading
to difficulty in target detection. In this study, we found that each
window should contain 1–2 complete terrace surfaces or contain
2–4 field ridge lines, as shown in Fig. 3.
Y. Zhang et al. International Soil and Water Conservation Research 5 (2017) 17–25

Fig. 5. Technical workflow of the template-matching terrace identification.

Fig. 6. Template selection picture. Fig. 7. Template scanning of the image pixel by pixel.

(4) Determination of effective edge line feature threshold. Effective If WTn1 = (WTave − WTsd ), WTn2 = (WTave + WTsd ) (1)
edge lines are lines with a length larger than 1/2 the window
Then WN n1=(WNave − WNsd ), WNn2 = (WNave + WNsd ) (2)
length, without bifurcation in the search window. In other words,
the line length is less than 1/2 the window length, and there is at n1 = WTave
least one node on the sample boundary line. The effective edge
n2 ∈ [WTn1, WTn2]
lines feature threshold has been determined using the effective
edge line statistics of a terrace sample and non-terrace sample in n3 ∈ [WTn1, WTn2], where WTn1 ≥ WNn2
the terrace sample training area. The maximum, minimum, n3 ∈ [WNn2, WTn2], where WTn1 < WNn2
average, and standard deviation values have been calculated, using
n4 ∈ [WTave, WTn2] (3)
the lines number in the two different samples. The feature
threshold (n) value and range can be calculated according to where WTave is the average of the effective edge lines in the terrace
formula (1)–(3) window;WTsd is the standard deviation of the effective edge lines in the
terrace window;WNave is the average of the effective edge lines in the

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Y. Zhang et al.
Fig. 8. Variance picture of the local search image. (a) Panchromatic image (b) Variance picture of search image.
Fig. 9. Terrace automatic identification effect picture with a variance threshold ≤0.45.
non-terrace window;WNsd is the standard deviation of the effective edge
lines in the non-terrace window;WTn1 and WTn2 are the left and right
distance to WTave equal to the value of WTsd ; WNn1 and WNn2 are the left
and right distance to when WNave equals the value of WNsd ; and
n1, n2 , n3, n4 are the four initial feature thresholds.
The above four initial feature thresholds have been used to
determine the attributes in the binary search image sample.
According to the results, the optimal feature threshold can be
determined.
4.1.3. Similarity calculation
The edge characteristics statistics algorithm determines the simi-
larity between the sample and the template by analyzing the relation-
ship between the effective edge number of a sample and the effective
edge threshold of the template. When the effective edge number in a
sample is under the template threshold, there is high similarity
between the sample and template.
4.1.4. Terrace identification and shape optimization
The template size has been used to classify samples on the binary
search image, and the template was used to scan the samples one by
one and apply the feature threshold judgement to the binary search
image. The terrace identification template that meets the edge line
feature threshold is a terrace, whereas those that do not meet the
threshold are non-terraces, as shown in Fig. 4.
The terrace has a continuous spatial distribution as one of its
features. The above terrace identification results show a discrete
independent pattern with pixels equal to the window size. The
boundary is irregular and does not match the actual terrace pattern
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International Soil and Water Conservation Research 5 (2017) 17–25
shape. In this paper, the 8 directions linkup criterion (Liu, Liu, Zhu, &
Chen, 2006) has been used to eliminate the salt and pepper noise
phenomenon and merge the pattern spots. In addition, erosion and
dilation operations of the mathematical morphology were used to
smooth the edges of the extraction results.
4.2. Template-matching algorithm
Based on the gray characteristics of terraces on high-resolution
panchromatic images, a terrace identification template was established.
In the algorithm, the gray value is first selected as the template vector,
and the template is used to scan the pixels one by one in the search
image to calculate the gray variance between the scanning sample and
the template. A variance value is assigned to the central pixel of the
sample to form a variance value picture of the search image. If the
variance value is small, the pixel between the sample and the template
is similar. The variance threshold is set, and when the pixel value of the
variance value picture is under the threshold, it is classified as a terrace.
The landuse data were applied to optimize the extraction results, and
the error extraction object was rejected. The specific technical workflow
is shown in Fig. 5.
4.2.1. Template establishment
(1) Template Source. Following the template source principle men-
tioned above, the algorithm can be used to establish an identifica-
tion template in the search image.
(2) Template Vector Selection and Size Determination. Based on a
scale of easiness to hardness in the template vector selection, the
image gray value is set as the template vector in this study.
According to the template size selection basis mentioned above,
this algorithm uses the terrace identification template on a GF-1
panchromatic image, and the template size covers 2–3 typical
terrace field surfaces, as shown in Fig. 6.
(3) Template Scanning Method. The template scanning method scans
pixel by pixel. When the template size is an even number, the
rectified template should scan the search image pixel by pixel to
determine the central point pixel of the scanning sample. The
template size is then adjusted automatically, and the rows and
columns are set as odd numbers. The template scanning method is
shown in Fig. 7.
4.2.2. Sample similarity calculation
Template-matching calculates the gray variance between the scan-
ning sample and the template vector, and the variance value is assigned
to the central point pixel of the sample. The gray variance of the sample
and the template vector is the sum of the gray variance between the
corresponding pixels (m*n pixels) on the template and sample. For
example, if X represents the template and Y represents the sample,
Y. Zhang et al. International Soil and Water Conservation Research 5 (2017) 17–25

Fig. 10. Technical workflow of terrace identification using the fourier transformation algorithm.

4.2.3. Terrace identification

Table 2 When the pixel value is smaller in the variance picture of the search
Comparison of algorithm accuracy. image, there is a closer similarity to the template. The terrace
identification characteristics value is not a discrete value, but rather
Algorithm Overall Typical terrace Atypical terrace
identification identification identification is a range of numbers. Therefore, the proper variance threshold should
accuracy accuracy accuracy be set for proper terrace identification. After a test in this study, the
optimal variance threshold of the current search image variance picture
Edge 55.19% 80.85% 51.34%
was determined to identify terraces, as shown in Fig. 9. Based on the
Characteristics
Statistics algorithm to automatically identify terraces, the landuse data were then
Template- 95.54% 97.18% 95.38% used to optimize the extraction results.
Matching
Fourier 91.02% 98.59% 90.25%
Transformation

4.3. Fourier transformation algorithm

then the formula of variance value between this sample and template is
n m 2
D= ∑ ∑ (Yi,j − Xi,j )
i =1 j =1
where i and j represent the row and column number in the sample.
By scanning the image pixel by pixel, each pixel is assigned a
variance value, forming a variance picture of the search image, shown
in Fig. 8. The figure shows that as the pixel value decreases, the
similarity between the sample and template increases. If the pixel value
increases, the deviation between the sample and template increases.
Based on the terrace textural features, the image has a spectrum
line direction with a vertical to linear texture after the Fourier
transformation. The image is processed using equalization enhance-
(4) ment, and the enhanced image is divided into n*n square windows. The
Fourier transformation is calculated on each window, and the char-
acteristics values are determined. Then, the characteristics threshold is
set to extract the terrace window that meets the threshold range. Shape
optimization is then applied to the extracted results. The landuse type
data are also applied to optimize the extraction results, and, in this
case, the error extraction object was rejected. The specific technical
workflow is shown in Fig. 10.

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Y. Zhang et al.
Fig. 11. Comparison of the extraction effect among the 3 algorithms. (a) Edge Characteristics Statistics. (b) Template-Matching. (c) Fourier Transformation.
4.3.1. Image equalization
The panchromatic image is processed with equalization to reduce
the influence of uneven gray hues to spectrum energy superposition.
4.3.2. Window division and characteristics value calculation
A window is the basic unit for the calculation of the Fourier
transformation and characteristics, and also the basis for terrace
extraction. The divided window and the Fourier transformation
characteristics are used to identify the terraces.
(1) Window Division. According to the spatial resolution of the image
and the terrace field surface width in the area, the window size is
set to cover the field surfaces and ridges. To guarantee the central
symmetry of the spectrum distribution of the window after the
Fourier transformation, which makes the characteristics value
calculation easier, the window size is set to an odd number.
Based on the spatial resolution of the GF-1 RS image, 3 pixel sizes
(7*7, 9*9 and 11*11) are selected for the image window division.
(2) Characteristics Value Calculation. Two-dimensional discrete
Fourier transformation (Zhao et al., 2016) is used to determine
the Fourier transformation on the divided window. On the Fourier
transformation spectrum graph, the characteristics value calcula-
tion principle (Yu et al., 2008) is used to calculate the Fourier
transformation characteristics value of each divided window.
Larger characteristics values will have a more obvious terrace
texture in the window.
4.3.3. Terrace identification and shape optimization
After our tests, the optimal Fourier transformation characteristics
value is selected for terrace identification. The terrace extraction using
Fourier transformation is launched based on the divided window.
However, the results have the same shape issue as the results extracted
using edge characteristics statistics extraction. Thus, the 8 directions
linkup criterion (Liu et al., 2006) and erosion and dilation operations of
the mathematical morphology are used to optimize the shape of the
extracted results. The results of the terrace automatic identification and
extraction are calculated using an algorithm, and then the landuse type
is applied to optimize the extracted results.
5. Results and discussion
In this study, we compared the terrace extraction results using
different algorithms. A single variable statistical method was applied to
evaluate the identification accuracy of each algorithm. The identifica-
tion accuracy includes overall identification accuracy, typical terrace
identification accuracy, and atypical terrace identification accuracy.
The identification accuracy is defined as the rate of terraces identified
by algorithm in the study area, or in other words, the ratio of the
number of terraces number by the algorithm to the actual terraces
number in the study area, calculated as follows:
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International Soil and Water Conservation Research 5 (2017) 17–25
TerraceNumberbyAlgorithm
IdentificationAccuracy = × 100%
ActualTerraceNumber (5)
The specific accuracy comparison results of each algorithm are
shown in Table 2.
With respect to the accuracy, the overall identification accuracies of
the three algorithms were good. In particular, the overall identification
accuracy of the Fourier transformation and template-matching meth-
ods reached over 91%. All three algorithms have a higher identification
accuracy of typical terraces with obvious features. Atypical terraces
have lower identification accuracy, especially the edge characteristics
statistics algorithm using the terrace texture.
The template-matching algorithm performed the best in terms of
the completeness of terrace extraction and compliance to the actual
terrace boundary. Its extracted boundary shape is normal and approx-
imates the real terrace boundary. The edge characteristics statistics
algorithm was second best, and its extracted boundary shape appears
normal but has differences when compared to the real boundary. In
comparison, the extracted terraces using the Fourier transformation
performed the worst, with fragmented map spots and almost no
complete terraces, with incomplete terrace boundaries and shapes.
If different objects have the same spectrum, namely gray, and if the
textural features of other objects are approximately the same as the
terrace feature, there is less error when using the terrace extraction by
the edge characteristics statistics algorithm. There are more erroneous
terrace map spots when using the template-matching and Fourier
transformation algorithms. In addition, when using the edge charac-
teristics statistics and template-matching algorithms, the terrace
templates that exceed the range of template vector and characteristics
value also result in erroneous results. When using the Fourier
transformation algorithm, the entire terrace cannot be extracted when
exceeding the window characteristics value.
Three images comparing the results are shown in Fig. 11.
6. Conclusions
In this study, we used two types of new algorithms to automatically
identify and extract terraces, edge characteristics statistics and tem-
plate-matching. Furthermore, we conducted a verification study over a
large spatial extent using the Fourier transformation algorithm pro-
posed by former studies. Among these algorithms, the template-
matching algorithm is simple and easy to apply using software
engineering and has higher identification and extraction accuracy;
thus, it is suitable for determining the location of terraces. The edge
characteristics statistics algorithm proposes a new template vector and
characteristics threshold, although there is a reduction in the identi-
fication and extraction accuracy compared to the template-matching
algorithm. However, edge characteristics statistics has over 80%
accuracy in identification and extraction of typical terraces. The
Fourier transformation algorithm is rather complicated, although it
Y. Zhang et al.
has high identification and extraction accuracy. However, the extracted
terraces are rather fragmented, and thus it is not suitable for being
used alone. In this study, the template source, size, characteristics
thresholds for the edge characteristics statistics, and template-match-
ing algorithms were studied and tested. This study has laid the
foundation for temporal and spatial extensions of the algorithms to
provide rapid terrace extraction over a large scale.
In this study, we explored automatic identification and extraction of
terraces using high-resolution remote sensing images. However, there
are certain deficiencies. For example, the template vector of the edge
characteristics statistics and template-matching algorithms are narrow;
they only consider the terrace texture and gray features without other
features. In addition, the template size is fixed and invariable. Future
studies should use the terrace direction and color, with a template
vector. Since the scale of terraces is complex, a self-adaptive template
would be ideal.
Foundation
Major Project of High-resolution Earth Observation System (08-
Y30B07-9001-13/15).
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