2012 Second International Workshop on Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Applications

Comparison of Pixel-Based and Object-Based Classification for Glacier Change Detection

Ibad-Ur-Rehman Raza [1], Syed Saqib Ali Kazmi [2], Syed Saad Ali [3], Ejaz Hussain [4]
Institute of Geographic Information Systems, School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, National University of Sciences & Technology Islamabad, Pakistan Ibad11@igis.nust.edu.pk [1], saqib11@igis.nust.edu.pk [2], saad11@igis.nust.edu.pk [3], ejaz@igis.nust.edu.pk [4]

Abstract This research paper compares the result of Object based and Pixel based classification techniques for glacier change detection on Landsat Thematic mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) imageries. The objective of this study is to see which classification method performs better for change detection in mountainous regions. Northern face of Himalayan region, The study area is undergoing climate change in the form of rapid melting of glacial ice mass, expansion of the existing lakes and creation of new lakes. This results in Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) and breach or outburst from ice and moraine dams causing devastating floods downstream. The global warming phenomenon worldwide has resulted in a significant decrease in glacial cover. Glaciers change monitoring and permafrost-related hazards have long been studied using remote sensing data and techniques to assess the damage. The world is facing a serious problem of handling the climate change issue and its effects on humans as well as on natural resources. Glaciers are considered as one of the best indicators of climate change [1]. Landsat TM/ETM+ images were used for glacier change monitoring of Turkeys mountains project, Mount Suphan. The results show that about of total area of suphan glacier has been lost in 23 years. Traditional image classification methods use only the spectral information at pixel level without considering the shape of underlying objects [2]. However, objectbased image classification process uses spectral and spatial dimensions (shape of feature) in order to perform classification. In this study, multi temporal Landsat TM and ETM+ image from 1990 to 2010 have been used. Initially, the traditional pixel-based classification was performed on Landsat thematic layers and layers developed from indices like NDVI and NDSII. Then object-based classification of these images was carried out. The comparison of the classification results (both qualitative and quantitative) show that the object-based approach gives about 10-15% higher accuracy, much better results in terms of area estimation and change detection of snow covered areas as compared to traditional pixel-based classification. The results also indicate that object based classification is more useful in mountainous regions to avoid confusion among classes produced by shadows. Keywords-Object Based, Classification, Remote Sensing Change Detection, Glaciers,

I.

INTRODUCTION

A Glacier is a huge accumulation of ice and snow which is formed over a period of centuries when it exceeds its ablation

(melting and sublimation). A glacial body is usually more than 0.1 km in area and its thickness is over 50 m. However due to high pressure of overlaying ice and debris and constantly increasing mass the glaciers slowly deform and flow or moves downhill under its own weight. As a result this glacial flow, a huge volume of rocks and debris is transported downhill and develops landforms like cirques and moraines. Glaciers are much different from the polar ice which is developed in the polar regions of the earth and remains almost stagnant and much less denser. Glaciers on the other hand form on elevated land and continue to move. The man induced climate change can be accessed from the mountain glaciers and how they are rapidly changing through time because they are the key to early warning system [3]. The recent climate change and its effects on the human communities and natural resources is the biggest challenge the world faces. The biggest natural hazard that climate change has produced in the recent years is the sudden melting of mountainous glaciers resulting in catastrophe [4].The Himalayan Range is facing the effects of climate change. There are a number of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood events that have occurred all around the world, especially in Asia [5]. One of the devastating GLOF was in Gojal Tehsil Hunza, Pakistan in 2010. The trend in global warming induced by climatic changes indicate rapid glacial retreat/melting leading to formation of glacial lakes on mountains and creating a potential for sudden devastating floods due to breach or outburst from ice or moraine dams. In the recent past the glacial cover depleted significantly all around as the climate becomes warmer. Remote sensing is the only reliable source of data for spatiotemporal analysis to detect the glacial changes due to natural phenomena or human induced global warming [6]. Remotely sensed multispectral images taken at different frequency can help to effectively monitor the recession and changes in the glaciers and to determine the spread/extent of melted ice in the adjacent areas. This study focuses on the Pixel-based and Object-based classification method for glacial change detection. For this purpose, multispectral images of the northern face of Himalayan Range over a period of three decade have been chosen to indicate the changes in the glaciers tongue due to climate change. Furthermore these two classification methods

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2012 Second International Workshop on Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Applications
have been used to compare not only the glacial change but also their performance. II. STUDY AREA 1) Indice Based To improve the pixel based technique NDVI and NDSII were applied to the images. The resulting thematic layers were stacked and then once again classified using pixel-based technique. Although there is no vegetation cover in all of the three images, still NDVI was chosen because it extracts soil from the image as well. This method was useful as it reduced the effect of shadows and normalized the images. B. Object Based Object based classification technique takes into account the shapes of the features along with their spectral pattern. In his method, the image is initially divided into small segments and then these segments are classified [9, 10]. There are three segmentation techniques namely: thresholding/clustering, region based, and edge based. For object segmentation, 30% weightage was assigned to shape and 70% to spectral pattern. Shape is given relatively less weightage but it greatly increases the accuracy of segmentation. Then NDVI and NDSII are applied to extract the snow and soil cover from the three images. The resulting classified images were then converted to vector format for area quantification. The complete tree of the methodology followed is shown in Fig. 2.

The study area is the National park region which is at the northern side of Mount Everest, highest mountain peak. The Himalayan mountain range lies immediately north of the Indian sub-continent. Himalayas range from the Indus river valley in west to the Brahmaputra river valley in east, forming an arc 2,400 km. It shares the border of Nepal and China. The study area is shown in Fig 1.

Figure 1. Study Area Landsat Satellite Imagery

III.

METHODOLOGY

Landsat TM data of National park region is acquired for a period of 30 years (1990, 2001, and 2010). The images are atmospherically corrected and then classified using both the pixel-based and object-based techniques. A. Pixel based Method Firstly, the pixel based technique using Maximum likelihood classification is applied on all the three images. Images were classified for number of classes Maximum Likelihood algorithm for pixel based classification is a classical classifier [7, 8]. ERDAS 2011 was used to perform Pixel Based supervised maximum likelihood classification. The traditional region growing method of classification was not effective on shadowed regions of the study area. This technique wrongly classified the shadow in soil class whereas the spectral pattern suggested that it was snow covered shadowed region. To overcome this confusion we used indices like NDVI and NDSII and then used region growing method. Pixel based method is lengthy because a number of pure classes has to be taken which should be well distributed in the study area.

Figure 2. The Methodology flow chart

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2012 Second International Workshop on Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Applications
IV. ACCURACY ASSESSMENT To check the classification accuracy, random sampling technique is used. For this purpose, 173 random points were generated and then the reference image of study area are overlaid to access the accuracy. The results are given in Table 1. Pixel Based 0.6416 0.6532 0.8266 Indices Based 0.7349 0.7314 0.8671
Table 1

Kappa(K) Tau() Overall Accuracy

Object Based 0.7889 0.7919 0.896

Figure 4. Indices Based

V.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The results show that the Object-based approach towards glacier change detection is the more efficient approach and less time consuming. Moreover, this technique gives a more compact and qualitatively better look as it considers shape of the object in classification. After computing the overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient for all the three methods of classification, we found out that the Object-based classification approach towards the quantification of glaciers is better than the pixel based methods. However, indices based method used in pixel based classification helped to reduce the effect of shadow in the image and correctly classified snow and soil on sunlit side as well as on shadowed side. After accuracy assessment it was found out that soil was better classified through this technique. Whereas, conventional pixel-based classification technique was less efficient in handling the shadows and mostly classified shadow as soil without having the knowledge of aspect and continuity of features. However, the pixel based techniques produced an abrupt appearance whereas the objectbased approach produced smooth appearance. The classified images are shown in figures 3, 4 and 5 below.

Figure 5. Object Based

From Fig 3 it can be seen that shadow was not properly classified. The traditional Pixel-based classification technique has mixed the snow and soil classes. When indices were applied and the image was stacked together the shadow effect was removed and more accurate results were seen Fig 4. After removing the effect of shadow, the last challenging thing was to compare these accurate results with the Object based approach in which the shape of the object is more important. The results were more or less similar but OB was more accurate Fig 5. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work is performed in IGIS, National University of Sciences and Technology. We are thankful to Mirza Muhammad Waqar (IGIS, NUST) and Haseeb Ur Rehman (IGIS, NUST) for their help in this research. We are also thankful to the Lab staff for their support. We acknowledge the facilities provided by IGIS in the computer lab.

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2012 Second International Workshop on Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Applications
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