Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045

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Geomorphology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geomorph

Deep learning-based approach for landform classification from

integrated data sources of digital elevation model and imagery
Sijin Li a,b,c, Liyang Xiong a,b,c,⁎, Guoan Tang a,b,c, Josef Strobl b,d
a
Key Laboratory of Virtual Geographic Environment (Nanjing Normal University), Ministry of Education, Nanjing 210023, China
b
School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
c
Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application, Nanjing 210023, China
d
Department of Geoinformatics – Z_GIS, University of Salzburg, Salzburg 5020, Austria

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Landform classification is one of the most important aspects in geomorphological research, dividing the Earth's
Received 28 September 2019 surface into diverse geomorphological types. Thus, an accurate classification of landforms is a key procedure in
Received in revised form 15 January 2020 describing the topographic characteristics of a given area and understanding their inner geomorphological for-
Accepted 15 January 2020
mation processes. However, landform types are not always independent of one another due to the complexity
Available online 16 January 2020
and dynamics of interior and external forces. Furthermore, transitional landforms with gradually changing sur-
Keywords:
face morphologies are widely distributed on the Earth's surface. With this situation, classifying these complex
Landform classification and transitional landforms with traditional landform classification methods is hard. In this study, a deep learning
Deep learning (DL) algorithm was introduced, aiming at automatically classifying complex and transitional landforms. This
DEM algorithm was trained to learn and extract landform features from integrated data sources. These integrated
Imagery data sources contain different combinations of imagery, digital elevation models (DEMs), and terrain derivatives.
The Loess Plateau in China, which contains complex and transitional loess landforms, was selected as the study
area for data training. In addition, two sample areas in the Loess Plateau with complex and transitional loess
hill and ridge landforms were used to validate the classified landform types by using the proposed DL method.
Meanwhile, a comparative analysis between the proposed DL and random forest (RF) methods was also con-
ducted to investigate their capabilities in landform classification. The proposed DL approach can achieve the
highest landform classification accuracy of 87% in the transitional area with data combination of DEMs and im-
ages. In addition, the proposed DL method can achieve a higher accuracy of landform classification with better
defined landform boundaries compared to the RF method. The classified loess landforms indicate the different
landform development stages in this area. Finally, the proposed DL method can be extended to other landform
areas for classifying their complex and transitional landforms.
© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The Earth's surface consists of various landforms, and different land-
form types contribute to the surface appearance through certain interior
and exterior forces of geomorphological, geological, hydrological, and
ecological processes (Drăguţ and Eisank, 2012; Evans, 2012; Song
et al., 2016). Thus, landform classification is one of the most important
procedures in geomorphological mapping and further understanding
of the Earth surface process (Bocco et al., 2001; Wang et al., 2010). An
accurate classification of landform in a given area plays an important
role in expressing the corresponding topographical characteristics, re-
vealing the geomorphological formation mechanisms, and indicating
⁎ Corresponding author at: School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing
210023, China.
E-mail address: xiongliyang@njnu.edu.cn (L. Xiong).
the landform evolution process (Drăguţ and Blaschke, 2006; Hiller and
Smith, 2008; Wang et al., 2010).
In the past century, the visual interpretation of topographic maps
and aerial photographs has been one of the most commonly used ap-
proaches to landform classification (Hammond, 1964; Dikau et al.,
1991). However, the visual interpretation method is time-consuming
and labor intensive, and it relies on the experience of geomorphologists
to generate reproducible results (Galli et al., 2008). Automated ap-
proaches to landform classification can be proposed and conducted
with the development of data acquisition and analysis methods in geo-
science. Hence, such approaches are focused research aspects in geo-
morphology and geomorphometry studies (Drăguţ and Eisank, 2011).
Currently, two main approaches to landform classification can be
found from previous studies, that is, pixel- and object-based methods
(Xiong et al., 2018). The pixel-based method can automatically classify
geomorphological entities on the basis of a series of terrain features,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2020.107045
0169-555X/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 S. Li et al. / Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045
such as ridge and peak. These features were commonly calculated on
the basis of the neighborhood analysis method to define the local differ-
ences (Wood, 1996). The classification methods, such as ISODATA, were
used to distinguish landform types (Minar and Evans, 2008; Evans,
2012; Jasiewicz and Stepinski, 2013). However, the pixel-based ap-
proach does not show good performance in non-uniform surfaces.
Such an approach cannot effectively implement the classification of
landform types, which cover multiple pixels (Saha et al., 2011).
The object-based method is another commonly used approach in the
field of landform classification. In the object-based method, the defini-
tion of topographic objects is necessary to meet the requirement of
the conceptual model of landform entities (Blaschke, 2010). The adja-
cent growing method is adopted in object-based approaches, and
neighboring cells with similar features are merged into a polygonal
objectrepresenting a meaningful spatial entity (Drăguţ and Blaschke,
2006; Romstad and Etzelmüller, 2012; Verhagen and Drăguţ, 2012).
The results of object-based methods include topological relationships
and morphological characteristics of different objects, and these
object-based methods have been widely used in the classification of
landform elements (Verhagen and Drăguţ, 2012). However, previous
applications have also demonstrated that the results based on the
object-based method are sensitive to morphological discontinuities
within study areas and data sources (Drăguţ et al., 2009; Anders et al.,
2011). Moreover, transitional landforms with gradually changing sur-
face morphology (i.e., morphological continuity) are widely distributed
on the Earth's surface (Fig. 1).
Different landforms reflect various geomorphologic processes and
varied influence factors, whereas the surface morphology over the
space consists of non-, sudden-, and gradual-change areas (Murray
et al., 2009). In the non- and sudden-change areas, spatial boundaries
and terrain features between different landforms appear well defined
and can be detected easily. However, in transitional areas, landforms
are gradually changing from one type to another, and the terrain fea-
tures of these landforms change continuously (Phillips, 2003; Drăguţ
and Blaschke, 2006; Xu et al., 2007). For instance, in the transitional
landforms of loess hill and ridge, their shapes are gradually changing
with similar terrain features. In this transitional area, defining criteria
to distinguish different landforms in transition regions with traditional
methods is difficult. The above outlined traditional methods are less
Fig. 1. Typical loess landforms. (a) loess tableland; (b) loess ridge; (c) loess hill; (d) transition area of mixed landforms of loess ridge and hill; (e) loess hill-dominated area (landform
boundaries are delineated by visual interpretation).
3
suited to extracting information that can support the classification of
similar landforms. The homogeneity of landforms requires powerful
learning ability and effective classification methods (Dikau, 1989;
Verhagen and Drăguţ, 2012).
Machine learning (ML) approaches have become one of the most
popular methods for landform recognition and segmentation in the
field of geomorphological research based on the development of
image segmentation methods (Heung et al., 2016). Machine learning al-
gorithms have the capability of information extraction from multiple
and big data sources (Berral et al., 2013). The surface spectra extracted
from imagery and the morphological features derived from digital ele-
vation models (DEMs) can be used and fused for data training by ML
approaches. Such approaches can be applied in geomorphological re-
search. Recently, among the ML methods, deep learning (DL) ap-
proaches receive particular attention due to their active learning
capability (LeCun et al., 2015; Ma et al., 2019). DL algorithms have
been widely used to identify terrain features, that is, landform recogni-
tion, due to the powerful ability of information recognition and extrac-
tion (Li and Hsu, 2018). However, in geomorphological studies,
landform recognition or extraction processes are employed to classify
landforms into different types. Currently, most applications of DL
methods in landform classification research focus on the analysis of
macro-landforms in a broad spatial scale range with clear landform
boundaries (Ehsani and Quiel, 2008; Li et al., 2017; Palafox et al.,
2017). However, gradually changing surfaces and homogeneous land-
forms increase the difficulty of accurate landform classification pro-
cesses (Drăguţ and Blaschke, 2006). For instance, the Loess Plateau,
which is located in the northwestern part of China, has three typical
loess landforms (Fig. 1), which represent the different developmental
stages of loess landscapes. The similar forces and environments cause
transition landforms with large areas, which have similar characteristics
that cannot be simply distinguished (Xu et al., 2007; Zhao et al., 2017).
Dividing landforms in these transitional areas into specific types using
traditional methods is still difficult (Fig. 1d, e). Thus, a suitable landform
classification method must be proposed, and constructing an approach
on the basis of DL algorithms to classify landforms is feasible.
This study aims to classify landforms in transitional areas by using a
DL approach. First, within the study area in the Loess Plateau, a dataset
of landform features from images, DEMs, and terrain derivatives in the
4 S. Li et al. / Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045
Fig. 2. Study areas. (a) Location of the Loess Plateau in China; (b) DEM of the Loess Plateau; (c) image of Wuqi; (d) DEM of Wuqi; (e) image of Yulin; (f) DEM of Yulin.
gradually changing landforms was established. Thereafter, we proposed
a network structure on the basis of DL, which can be trained to learn the
landform features. We then discuss the performance of the DL algorithm
in landform classification and investigate the performance of experi-
mental results in illustrating the geomorphological process. After that,
we compare the accuracies of the proposed DL and random forest
methods. Finally, the development stages of landforms in the study
areas are assessed.
2. Study area and data
In this study, the Loess Plateau in China was chosen as a study area to
classify landforms by using the DL approach due to the complex terrain
combination and transitional landform types. The Loess Plateau is
located in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River (Fig. 2a, b)
and covers an area of 640,000 km2. The typical landforms in this area
can be used to reflect various geomorphic processes including gully
erosion (Sun, 2002). Currently, loess landforms in convex landform
(i.e., positive landform) areas are recognized as three basic types (Zhou
et al., 2010, Xiong et al., 2014a, 2014b, 2014c). These types are loess table-
land, ridge, and hill (Table 1). Most previous research has focused on con-
cave landform (i.e., negative landform) objects, such as gullies and vallies.
Loess landforms on the convex terrain surface are representative geo-
graphical objects (Zhou et al., 2010). Such geographical objects reflect
Table 1
Characteristics of three basic loess landforms.
Type Development stage Feature
Loess Young stage The top of tableland is flat and it contains
Tableland villages and croplands.
Loess Ridge Middle stage They have the long strip shape and connect
with other ridges and hills.
Loess Hill Mature stage Their visual features are similar to mounds.
the formation process of loess landforms and are crucial in studies on
landform evolution (Cao et al., 2013; Song et al., 2013). In addition,
most anthropogenic terraces were constructed in this convex loess land-
form area (Dai et al., 2019). Different loess landforms in this convex area
also demonstrate different soil erosion processes (Fu, 1989; Fu et al.,
2000; Liu et al., 2016). Thus, accurate loess landform classification can
support the planning of agricultural production and soil and water con-
servation (Fu, 1989; Zhou et al., 2010).
We observed through the practical experiments that the differences
between loess tableland and other two landforms are clear. However,
distinguishing loess ridge from loess hill is difficult. The forms of these
two types are similar, and their definitions are ambiguous, making the
classification difficult. In this study, we aim to implement a classifying
network with the prime performance objective of distinguishing loess
ridge and hill.
The areas of basic data, which include training, validation, and test
data, were selected on the basis of the landscape evolution and morpho-
logical characteristics. Fig. 2b shows the five typical areas chosen in this
study, marked by circles with a number. These areas are located in the
transitional areas of loess hill-ridge, providing the required information
for landform classification. In addition, the two sample areas, Wuqi
(Fig. 2c, d) and Yulin (Fig. 2e, f), were selected to discuss the network's
results. These two areas represent different development stages of loess
landforms. Wuqi has more loess ridges, whereas Yulin suffered more in-
tense erosion and has more loess hills. No training data exist in these
two areas to enhance the accuracy of the experiment. The data of
these two sample areas are only used in the experiments after the opti-
mization and assessment of the network.
The basic data we used in this study are DEM, terrain derivatives, and
remote sensing images, (Table 2). The DEM data were collected from
version 2 of the ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEMV2). The
GDEMV2 is one of the most complete high-resolution digital topo-
graphic datasets of the world at a spatial resolution of 1 arc-second (ap-
proximately 30 m) (Satgé et al., 2015; Diani et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2019).
 S. Li et al. / Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045
Table 2
Information on the selected data.
Data Resolution Function
DEM 30 m Providing information about surface relief and elevation.
Slope 30 m Reflecting the changing rate of surface relief.
Aspect 30 m Reflecting development direction of landforms.
Image 8.96 m Providing information about optical spectrum and texture.
In the Loess Plateau, the length or radius of loess landforms is larger
than 30 m, and the features of loess landforms can be observed clearly
in the DEM at a resolution of 30 m. Moreover, terrain derivatives
(i.e., slope and aspect), which were derived from the DEM data, were
also used in this study to further represent the differences between var-
ious loess landforms (Kienzle, 2004). A slope reflects the changing rate
of surface elevation, which can help detect the boundary of loess land-
forms (Iwahashi et al., 2001; Weiss, 2001). An aspect also provides in-
formation about the development direction of landforms (Chang and
Tsai, 1991). For instance, the characteristics of aspect in loess ridge
areas include several strip-type polygons, which should be differed to
that in loess hill areas. Remote sensing images also have a great signifi-
cance in landform classification (Drăguţ and Blaschke, 2006; Wan et al.,
2012). Images reflect the landform features of spectrum and texture.
Google Earth images were used in our study because of the similarity
of loess landforms. We selected remote sensing images at a spatial res-
olution of 8.96 m as one of the basic data.
3. Methodology
The proposed approach involves these following four steps: (1) data
preparation, (2) DL network building and training, (3) accuracy test and
validation, and (4) landform analysis of study area. First, remote sensing
imagery, DEMs, and their derivatives were collected as the input
dataset. Second, a DL approach was established for landform classifica-
tion on the basis of the prepared input dataset. We built a network
with multi-channel geomorphological feature extraction and fusion
Fig. 3. U-net architecture (example for 32 × 32 pixels in the lowest resolution) (Ronneberger et al., 2015).
5
structure on the basis of previous studies (Bu et al., 2014). The network
was also trained in this stage. After obtaining the trained network with
optimal training performance, the test data were used to calculate the
accuracy of the network. The classification performances based on dif-
ferent input datasets were also compared, and an optimal data combi-
nation with the highest accuracy was chosen in this process. The last
step focused on the analysis of landform development. We tried to as-
sess the development stage in the study areas on the basis of the results
we obtained from our approach.
3.1. Training data collection
DL algorithms commonly need a large amount of data to train a net-
work, whereas test data are also necessary to investigate the feasibility
and accuracy of algorithms (Gevaert et al., 2018). First, we collected im-
ages and DEMs in loess landform transition areas and calculated several
terrain derivatives on the basis of DEMs. In our study, we resampled the
cell size of DEM to an equal level of imagery. In this process, DEM data
were resampled using the nearest neighbor method to obtain data
with the same cell size as remote sensing imagery. This resampling pro-
cess in DL algorithms has been proven to exert a limited influence on the
accuracy of the landform classification process (Latifovic et al., 2018;
Metelka et al., 2018).This is because the resolution of resampled DEM
is finer than that of the original DEM. In addition, resampling is neces-
sary when we want to combined multi-source data with different reso-
lutions. The network requires the same cell size as input data.
Meanwhile, annotated data were also prepared. Annotated data can
be viewed as “labeled data” which represent different polygons. These
polygons should be different landform units with corresponding attri-
bute values. We interpreted all landforms existing on the images and
manually drew their boundaries. These annotated data were also
added to the total dataset. The class balancing problem was also consid-
ered in this step, and we randomly annotated similar numbers of poly-
gons for each type (W. Zhang et al., 2018). In our study, the number of
loess landform polygons (i.e., loess ridge and loess hill) was more than
1500. They were collected from visually interpreting the original data,
6 S. Li et al. / Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045
and a dataset was built on the basis of these data. In the prepared
dataset, each type of data has 150 samples.
The complete dataset was randomly divided into the following three
parts: (1) training data for analyzing the landform features, (2) valida-
tion data for minimizing the over fitting, and (3) test data for evaluating
the performance of the trained network. The percentages of these three
parts are 80%, 10%, and 10%, respectively.
In this research, all samples sizes are 224 × 224 pixels (approxi-
mately 2 km × 2 km). The selection of this sample size was based on
the following reasons. First, the features of loess landforms in the area
can be reflected clearly in the images, and the information that will be
used for the classification is preserved. In other words, the sample size
is suitable for the purpose of our study to classify the loess landforms.
Furthermore, the specific sample size affects the computational time
on the basis of a satisfactory precision.
3.2. Deep-learning-based algorithm
In this research, we chose a typical structure for a deep convolution
network, U-Net (Ronneberger et al., 2015), as the basic network struc-
ture to implement the classification of landforms because of its effec-
tiveness and simplicity. We changed certain layers and adjusted them
to geomorphological research on the basis of the existing structure of
U-Net.
3.2.1. U-Net
Fig. 3 shows the network structure, which can be divided into two
paths, contracting and expanding paths (Ronneberger et al., 2015).
The function of the contracting path is to extract valuable information
from input data and compress images. The clear difference between
U-Net and traditional CNN is the architecture of the expanding path.
The up-convolution for upsampling replaces the fully connected layers.
U-Net uses extensive data augmentation by applying elastic deforma-
tion to the available training images (Ronneberger et al., 2015). The
strategy of data augmentation was used to meet the segmentation
needs of biomedical images (Norman et al., 2018). Deformation is a
common phenomenon for biological cells, and elastic deformation can
simulate it efficiently. Similar principles exist in the research of land-
forms. Landforms suffered the various influences of the inner and
Fig. 4. Modified structure in this study (replacing the structure which is labeled by the red box in Fig. 3).
external geomorphological processes, which lead to the deviation be-
tween the natural and theoretical features of landforms. The elastic de-
formation could simulate a part of landform change and enhance the
classification ability of the network. Moreover, this strategy could re-
duce the required amount of available training samples (Norman
et al., 2018). An enormous amount of typical samples that cannot be dis-
tinguished by manual visual interpretation exists. Hence, such a strat-
egy is an improvement for landform classification.
3.2.2. Modification based on U-Net
The traditional U-Net structure has only one input channel. How-
ever, in geomorphological research, landform is a complex combination
of characteristics, and its features cannot be expressed completely on
the basis of one channel of data. For instance, images can describe the
texture of landforms, whereas they cannot show information about sur-
face elevation. The classification of landforms requires various data sets
to represent different information and the completeness of features in-
fluences the accuracy of the network. Hence, the architecture with one
input channel limited the application of U-Net or other similar networks
in the field of landform studies. In this study, a multi-channel feature fu-
sion structure (Fig. 4) was used as a replacement of the U-Net's
contracting path. In our network, the number of input channels is
changeable. Each type of the previous dataset we established, such as
images, DEM, and slope, can be used as an input of one channel. In
each channel, the first three layers are similar to the original U-Net. A
concatenation operation was established between the third and fourth
convolutional layers to connect different feature maps. The different in-
formation extracted from divergent data can be fused and combined
into one powerful feature map through the concatenation layer. Each
training sample will pass 16 convolution layers to extract features and
reduce the size of the sample. Various features can be extracted by the
proposed network from different data, and Fig. 5 shows the feature
maps of four convolution layers.
Another modification of our network is about the concatenation be-
tween the contracting and expanding paths. In the process of concatena-
tion, choosing the sequence of channels will also influence the result of
classification. In this study, the channel of remote sensing images was
chosen to connect with corresponding layers of the expanding path.
 S. Li et al. / Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045 7

Fig. 5. Features extracted by the proposed method from different data.

3.3. Network validation and accuracy test application in the case studies. We conducted a three-step assessment
to evaluate the fine-tuned network. First, we recorded the learning
The novel network was optimized during the training process. In this curve of the network, which could help to minimize over-fitting with
step, we evaluated the accuracy of the trained network before its the validation dataset. We adopted an early stopping strategy
8 S. Li et al. / Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045
Table 3
Data combinations of case studies.
Case number Data type
Case 1 Image
Case 2 Image + DEM
Case 3 Image + DEM + aspect
Case 4 Image + DEM + slope
Case 5 All indices
(Loughrey and Cunningham, 2005) and trained the network with
predefined 1000 epochs so that we could record the full learning
curve of our network. The curves of training and validation losses can
be used to ascertain the optimal value of network epochs. Moreover,
we assessed the accuracies of classification on the basis of the reference
data, which were conducted by human interpretation. We assessed the
accuracy of classification at two levels, object and pixel levels. For the
object level, first, we automatically calculated the intersection over
union (IoU) value of each polygon produced by network. The IoU was
calculated as follows:
IoU ðA; BÞ ¼ areaðA∩BÞ=areaðA∪BÞ; ð1Þ
where A is a polygon in the classification result and B is a polygon in the
reference data representing the same landform object. A high value of
IoU means a high overlap accuracy of the classifying result. In this
study, we set a threshold of IoU as 0.45, which is slightly lower than a
traditional value of 0.5 because of the similarity of loess landforms. A
polygon with an IoU value that was greater than 0.45 was counted as
a true positive (TP). The polygons which have the IoU value of 0–0.45
were counted as false positives (FP). Moreover, the polygons that
were not detected by networks in the classification result but exist in
the reference data were regarded as true negatives (TN). The false neg-
atives (FN) represent polygons, which should be classified as back-
ground, but were classified as a part of loess landforms. In the field of
DL, precision, recall, and over-accuracy are three common indicators
that reflect the performance of networks (Davis and Goadrich, 2006).
On the basis of these indicators, we calculated precision, recall, and
overall accuracy (OA):
Precision ¼ TP=ðTP þ FPÞ; ð2Þ
Recall ¼ TP=ðTP þ FNÞ; ð3Þ
OA ¼ TP=ðTP þ FP þ TN þ FNÞ; ð4Þ
where TP, FP, TN and FN are the polygon's accounts of true positive, false
positive, true negative, and false negative, respectively. For the pixel
level, we calculated the percentage of pixels with the same distribution
of reference data. Finally, in this study, we compared the accuracies of
the DL and RF approaches, and we also analyzed the differences of
two methods.
In addition, we conducted five independent experiments using dif-
ferent data combinations. The performance of the fine-tuned network
was also tested on the basis of these five data combinations. Image,
DEM, and terrain derivatives further reflect a part of landform features,
and the combination of different data can enhance the expression of
landform features. Table 3 shows the information about the data combi-
nations. The accuracy and the performance on the basis of different data
combinations was analyzed to choose the best data combination.
4. Results
4.1. Network optimization and accuracy
4.1.1. Optimization
We optimized the network during the training process and assessed
the accuracy of the trained network before the application in the case
studies. The validation dataset was used to analyze the over-fitting of
the network. Fig. 6 depicts the loss curves of the training process
based on the different data combination.
We should decrease the influence of over-fitting in the training pro-
cess to obtain the optimal result of a network (Q. Zhang et al., 2018). A
significant feature of over fitting is that the values of validation loss
reach their lowest and then rebound, whereas the training loss values
still descend. For instance, Fig. 6b shows that the curve indicates that
the network tends to “memorize” the training data rather than “learn”
to extract features after the 140th epoch. We ascertained the optimal
epoch values of five data combinations (Table 3), and Fig. 6 shows
these epoch values in blue. We found that the threshold values are not
high, and these values decrease gradually with the increase of input
channel number based on the learning curves. These two phenomena
can be explained by two reasons. First, the size of data remarkably influ-
ences the necessary epoch of training process. In our study, the rela-
tively small size of training sample directly causes the early
convergence with small epoch values. Second, the use of additional
data can supply extra information about landform features, and it also
can accelerate the process of learning, which results to the gradual de-
crease of epoch values.
4.1.2. Accuracy assessment
We completed the training of network with the required epoch on
the basis of the former analysis. Thereafter, we assessed the accuracy
of the network with the hold-out test dataset. First, we calculated the
accuracy of classification in terms of landform objects. Tables 4 and 5
show the results. Precision and recall show a negative relationship,
which means that an increase in one indicator correspond with a de-
crease in the other indicator. This phenomenon is common in the field
of DL research (Davis and Goadrich, 2006). Tables 4 and 5 show that
the precision of the loess hill identification in all experiments is greater
than 0.7, except for case 4. For the classification of loess ridge, the values
of recall are higher than the results of loess hill. All recall values of loess
ridge classification are over 0.75. For the values of overall accuracy, cases
2 and 5 exhibit excellent performance in the classification of loess hill
and loess ridge.
We can see that the factors of slope and aspect did not have the pos-
itive effect on the classification of loess landforms. For aspect, features of
loess hill are similar to several parts of loess ridge. A part of loess hill re-
mains at the transition stage between loess ridge and hill. Slope can im-
prove the performance of boundary detection. However, for the
classification of loess landforms, the result based on slope is not satisfac-
tory. The reason is that loess ridge and hill are located in convex terrain.
The difference of slope between these two entities is insignificant,
though, leading to worse results of loess hill classification.
Table 6 shows the percentage of correctly classified pixels. The re-
sults are satisfactory and all over 70%, which reflect that the network
has a good performance at the pixel level. The result based on case 2 (in-
cluding image and DEM) has the highest accuracy, corresponding with
the assessment of object level. Another phenomenon is that the accura-
cies of loess hill are higher than for loess ridge, due to the boundaries of
loess ridge being more complex than for loess hill. The omission errors
are predominantly located in the area of loess ridge boundaries. The
similarity between loess ridge boundary and gully leads to the wrong
classification at the pixel level. Fig. 7 shows that all polygons in pre-
dicted results have a similar shape as the actual landforms, but certain
redundant parts also exist near the margin. We consider the position
 S. Li et al. / Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045 9

Fig. 6. Loss graphs for network optimization of different data combinations. (a) Case 1; (b) case 2; (c) case 3; (d) case 4; (e) case 5.

and the area of predicted results as satisfactory, this network therefore
can be used in the practical case study based on the former analysis.
4.2. Loess landform classification
After the training and test process, the network is qualified and can
be used to classify the two loess case areas (Fig. 2). Fig. 8 shows the
landform classification results on the basis of case 2 (i.e., images and
DEMs). The number of loess hill units in Yulin (Fig. 8a) is clearly more
than that in Wuqi (Fig. 8b). This demonstrates that the Yulin area has
reached the medium stage of loess ridge-hill development due to in-
tense erosion. However, the Wuqi area remains at the earlier stage
and mainly involves loess ridges. The transition from loess ridge to
loess hill in Wuqi is obvious in the next period. In addition, results of
10 S. Li et al. / Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045

Table 4 5. Discussion
Accuracy assessment of loess hill landform classification (object level).

Loess Hill Predicted class Precision Recall Overall 5.1. Comparison between DL and RF methods
accuracy
Positive Negative
We compared the performance of our network with that of the RF
Actual Case True 122 85 0.76 0.59 0.50
method for automated landform classification. The RF method has
class 1 False 39 0
Case True 125 36 0.86 0.78 0.69 been widely used in image classification on the basis of multiple deci-
2 False 20 0 sion trees (Belgiu and Drăguţ, 2016; Breiman, 2001). In this RF experi-
Case True 100 88 0.74 0.53 0.45 ment, we first constructed 300 trees to conduct the experiment of
3 False 35 0 landform classification of loess ridge and hill. To compare the classifica-
Case True 90 80 0.66 0.53 0.42
4 False 46 0
tion results of RF and DL, the experiment on the RF method was proc-
Case True 136 45 0.77 0.75 0.62 essed based on same dataset of the DL method. Second, the annotated
5 False 40 0 data (labeled data) were transformed to the required data format of
the RF method. Finally, after the training process, the landforms of
loess ridge and hill were classified. The results of the classification
using the two methods were compared at two different levels. At first,
Table 5
Accuracy assessment of loess ridge landform classification (object level). at the object level, as seen in Fig. 9, the predicted polygons are broken
and have many holes. Besides, polygons in the result of the RF approach
Loess Ridge Predicted Class Precision Recall Overall
include some areas of negative terrain, considered erroneous results.
accuracy
Positive Negative Omission errors are common in the results of RF. In addition, the RF ap-
Actual Case True 125 39 0.63 0.76 0.52 proach has difficulties to distinguish the type of landform. In the results
class 1 False 75 0 of RF, almost all polygons are classified into loess ridge. Finally, Fig. 9
Case True 133 24 0.82 0.85 0.71 shows that the boundaries of the RF approach as very irregular and bro-
2 False 30 0
ken. These results show that the performance of the RF approach is
Case True 120 35 0.59 0.77 0.50
3 False 85 0 worse than our DL network.
Case True 124 29 0.66 0.81 0.57 We also assessed the accuracy of the RF approach at the pixel level.
4 False 65 0 Table 7 compares the accuracy of the DL network and the RF approach.
Case True 138 30 0.77 0.82 0.66 Clearly, the percentage of the correct classification of the RF approach is
5 False 41 0
much less than the percentage of the DL approach. Overall, the perfor-
mance of the DL network is better than the RF approach. In transition
areas, distinguishing two similar landforms on the basis of a simple
Table 6 dataset is difficult in the RF approach. The RF approach requires addi-
Accuracy assessment for landform classification (pixel level). tional representative datasets to improve the accuracy of classification.
However, compared with the RF approach, the DL approach offers a bet-
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 Case 5
ter performance based on the readily accessible data with easy pre-
loess ridge 0.73 0.83 0.73 0.77 0.73 processing. The accuracy of networks for the DL approach shows
loess hill 0.84 0.91 0.85 0.88 0.83
improvement.

5.2. Indication of loess landform development stages

case 2 show that DEMs can enhance the discriminability of each class,
and the area of overlap of two entities decreased obviously. The joining
of DEMs provides the information of terrain relief and improves the per-
formance of the network. Compared with other results, loess hills de-
tected in case 2 have more regular circular shapes. Moreover, the
visual effect is also better than others, and the boundaries of polygons
are more similar to actual landform entities. Hence, we consider that
DEM offers the information about elevation and terrain and improved
the performance of landform classification.
The creation of landforms is a complex process, and the changing of
landform units is a process of geomorphic evolution at the micro level
(Zhou et al., 2010). The number of landform units directly reflects the
stage of landscape development and the intensity of influential processes.
Fig. 8 shows that the difference of results in two study areas is clear. The
number of polygons representing the loess hill in Yulin, is significantly
higher than in Wuqi, and the area of spatial distribution in Yulin is also
larger than area in Wuqi. In addition, in our study, the number of poly-
gons and other derivatives, which can depict surfaces, are computable.

Fig. 7. Boundary differences between predicted results and ground truth. (a) Case 1; (b) case 2; (c) case 3; (d) case 4; (e) case 5.
 S. Li et al. / Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045 11

Fig. 8. Landform classification results of Yulin and Wuqi. (a) Yulin. (b) Wuqi.

Fig. 9. Comparison between DL and RF approaches. (a) Case 1 of DL; (b) case 2 of DL; (c) case 3 of DL; (d) case 4 of DL; (e) case 5 of DL; (f) case 1 of RF; (g) case 2 of RF; (h) case 3 of RF;
(i) case 4 of RF; (j) case 5 of RF.

Fig. 10 shows that the differences of these factors calculated in two stud- Wuqi. Loess hill represents more intense erosion than loess ridge on the
ies. The number of loess ridge in the Yulin area is higher than those in the basis of the prior knowledge. Yulin underwent more intense erosion
Wuqi area, whereas the areas of loess ridge in the Yulin area are smaller and the period of erosion in Yulin is also longer than Wuqi. The method
than those in the Wuqi area. This phenomenon shows that the surface we propose improves the performance of landform classification. The
of the Yulin area is more broken than the surface of the Wuqi area, and landform development in the study area can be judged and analyzed
Yulin has a more mature development stage than Wuqi. In addition, through the relative calculation of landforms' factors.
Yulin has higher area and polygon number of loess hill than that of Moreover, in a specific area such as the Loess Plateau, the landforms
in convex terrain have the phenomenon of geomorphological inheri-
Table 7
tance (Xiong et al., 2014a, 2014b, 2014c). Extending the research of
Percentage of correctly classified pixels. paleotopography to the micro level and constructing the conversion
model of the modern surface to paleotopography could be possible
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 Case 5
based on the analysis of landforms. The automated classification of land-
RF approach 35% 59% 59% 60% 61% forms can support the research on geomorphological inheritance and
DL approach 78% 87% 79% 83% 78%
improve the efficiency and accuracy of the results.
12 S. Li et al. / Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045
Fig. 10. Statistics results of polygon number, perimeter, and area. (a) Polygon number; (b) perimeter; (c) area.
5.3. Implication of landform classification in other areas
Research on specific landforms helps describe the development and
formation process in a given area (Hammond, 1964; Evans, 2012). In the
typical research of geomorphology, a common problem is the complex-
ity and similarity of landforms. An advanced structure of a classification
model is necessary for accurate results. However, for other methods in
different study, it is difficult to apply an algorithm to other tasks areas
and acquire a satisfied result.
A significant advantage of DL algorithms is the transferability of the
network (Long et al., 2015). The fine-tuned network could be applied to
similar tasks and perform well through the replacement of training data
(Marmanis et al., 2015). This process is called transfer learning, which is
the ability of a system to recognize and apply knowledge and skills
learned in previous tasks to novel domains. Transfer learning can im-
prove the efficiency of landform research (Shin et al., 2016). In this pro-
cess, a relatively small dataset can be used to adjust a network to an
optimal stage. The formation of different landforms is based on similar
processes, and the similarity of features could also be discovered from
the appearance of landforms. Hence, transfer learning is a reasonable
process for a geomorphological study. Moreover, the transferability of
networks decreases time and specifically efforts to collect basic data
and train the classification network.
Karst landforms have similar features as the loess landforms that we
tackled in this study. For instance, Fenglin and Fengcong are two typical
karst landforms with prominent features (Fig. 11). Fenglin areas have
many pinnacles with large slopes and less dense peaks, and most pinna-
cles are tower-shaped. However, the pinnacles in Fengcong areas are
mostly cone-shaped, and they have less slopes than pinnacles in Fenglin
Fig. 11. Images of Karst landforms. (a) Fenglin and (b) Fengcong (Meng et al., 2018).
areas (Dian, 1996; Tang and Day, 2000). Fenglin and Fengcong can be
viewed as important signs of karst landform developmental degree
(Zhu, 2009), which have a similar role as loess ridge and hill (Yang
et al., 2019). However, due to the morphological similarity of these
two landforms, the classification of Fenglin and Fengcong still has
many problems (Smart et al., 1986; Waltham, 2008). The classification
of loess ridge and loess hill that we conducted in this research is
under a similar situation as the classification of Fenglin and Fengcong.
A special dataset should be used to realize network training based on
our method, and improve the accuracy of karst landform classification.
5.4. Possible limitation of the proposed method
The method is feasible and can support geomorphological research
to realize the classification of landforms and analyze the development
stage of landscapes based on DL (W. Zhang et al., 2018; Ma et al.,
2019). The network used in this study successfully utilizes multiple
data sources to extract landform features from training datasets and
classifies the targets of interest into correct categories. However, certain
problems still exist in our study. We envision two possible ways to im-
prove the performance of our network: (1) find the optimal definition
of landform boundary: in our research, we have proven that our net-
work can detect the correct position of landforms with a comparatively
precise boundary result. However, the boundaries of some landform en-
tities are ambiguous. Boundaries with a clear definition could improve
the accuracy and performance of landform classification. (2) Provide
different terrain derivatives and integrate multi-level features of land-
forms. Different data could depict the various features of landforms
from different perspectives (Zhao et al., 2017). We expect to find several
 S. Li et al. / Geomorphology 354 (2020) 107045
derivatives that could reflect more representative features of landforms.
The representative data combination can improve the accuracy of land-
form classification.
6. Conclusions
(1) The DL method was used for landform classification and demon-
strates good performance. In this study, we constructed a network
based on a modified U-Net. Multiple data layers were collected and
fused as the input to the network. The classification accuracy is satisfac-
tory, and the results of experiments can be used in further geomorpho-
logical research.
(2) Constructing several data combinations and the accuracies based
on the different data layers were assessed. (i) The remote sensing offers
immense information about the object boundary and area; (ii) DEM can
improve the distinction of loess ridge and hill; (iii) Aspect data can im-
prove the accuracy of loess hill detection, but its the performance is
worse than that of DEM; (iv) slope data can improve the accuracy of
boundaries slightly; and (v) the best data combination in our study is
image and DEM.
(3) On the basis of the comparison with the RF approach, the perfor-
mance of the DL approach is better than the RF approach. The result of
the DL approach shows higher accuracy and more reasonable classifying
results. In addition, the indication of landform development stage from
the classification results of the DL approach has also been proven in this
study. The development stage of loess landforms is reflected by the re-
sult of the DL approach. Furthermore, the approach proposed in this
study can be applied to different landform areas, such as karst landform.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (41930102, 41971333, 41601411, 41671389); and Priority Aca-
demic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.
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