Unwanted vegetation and abandoned lands detection and mapping

Motivations
Council Regulation (EC) No 73/2009 Article 6 Good agricultural and environmental condition Minimum level of maintenance: Ensure a minimum level of maintenance and avoid the deterioration of habitats Retention of landscape features, including, where appropriate, hedges, ponds, ditches trees inline, in group or isolated and field margins Avoiding the encroachment of unwanted vegetation on agricultural land Protection of permanent pasture

Objective
Develop a methodology for identification of unwanted vegetation, abandoned lands from satellite images to be used in visual photointerpretation CAPI

Zona de studiu si datele folosite

The chosen study area is a part of Mehedinti county

Imput data
Satellite data : VHR Geoeye (26 may 2009) HR Spot 4 (9 May 2009) HR Spot 4 (14 Jun 2009) HR Spot 5 ( 14 Jul 2009)

Procedures
From satellite images vegetation indices NDVI , MSAVI , MMSAVI was generated .

NDVI was generated for all HR images

NDVI was selected because is probably the most commonly used index in the last decades when studying vegetation. Its deficiencies and advantages have been thoroughly studied and are actually well known. This p rovided to the project results a kind of point of reference from where the performance of the other techniques was evaluated. NDVI is defined as: .

where R and NIR represent the surface reflectance on the red and near infrared regions of the spectrum, respectively.

MSAVI

The modified soil-adjusted vegetation index (MSAVI) and its later revision, MSAVI2, are soil adjusted vegetation indices that seek to address some of the limitation of NDVI when applied to areas with a high degree of exposed soil surface.

where RED is the red band reflectance from a sensor, NIR is the near infrared band reflectance, and L is the soil brightness correction factor. MSAVI uses the following formula to calculate L, where s is the slope of the soil line from a plot of red versus near infrared brightness values. :

Modified MSAVI
The formula of calculation is the same as in MSAVI , the only exception is instead of deducting RED band from NIR , we deducted GREEN band from NIR

After the stage where all 3 indices (NVDI,MSAVI, MMSAVI) Fig. 1 a stack was created , NDVI,MSAVI,MMSAVI become a layer of the new image obtained like this Fig. 2 , Fig. 3 . The stacks was classified using unsupervised classification ,obtained classe was gruped in 4 principal classes Fig. 5: Arable land Abandoned land Uncultivated land Uncultivated land encroachement of unwanted vegetation

NDVI 9 May

NDVI 14 Jun

NDVI 14 Jul

MSAVI 9 May

MSAVI 14 Jun

MSAVI 14 Jul

MMSAVI 9 May

MMSAVI 14 Jun

MMSAVI 14 Jul

Fig. 1

Stacks NDVI

MSAVI

MMSAVI

Fig. 2

Stacks overview NDVI MMSAVI MMSAVI

Stacks classification NDVI MSAVI MMSAVI

Fig 3

Diferente NDVI MSAVI MMSAVI

Fig. 4

Abandoned vs uncultivated land

Fig. 5

Abandoned land Uncultivated land Uncultivated land encroachement of unwanted vegetation

Conclusions
Vegetation indices classification can be a great help in taking decisions regarding GAECs The method doesnt eliminate the classical visual interpretation on time series satellite images To do in the future: Supervised classification Initial masking of urban elements