Assessment of Supervised Classifiers for Land Cover Categorization Based on Integration of ALOS PALSAR and Landsat Data

Abstract

Many supervised classification algorithms have been proposed, however, they are rarely evaluated for specific application. This research examines the performance of machine learning classifiers support vector machine (SVM), neural network (NN), Random Forest (RF) against maximum classifier (MLC) (traditional supervised classifier) in forest resources and land cover categorization, based on combination of Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) and Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data, in Northern Tanzania. Various data categories based on Landsat TM surface reflectance, ALOS PALSAR back-scattering and their derivatives were generated for various classification scenarios. Then a separate and joint processing of Landsat and ALOS PALSAR data were executed using SVM, NN, RF and ML classifiers. The overall classification accuracy (OA), kappa coefficient (KC) and F 1 score index values were computed. The result proves the robustness of SVM and RF in classification of forest resource and land cover using mere Landsat data and integration of Landsat and PALSAR (average OA = 92% and F 1 = 0.7 to 1). A two sample t-statistics was utilized to evaluate the performance of the classifiers using different data categories. SVM and RF indicate there is no significance difference at 5% significance level. SVM and RF show a significant difference when compared to NN and ML. Generally, the study suggests that parametric clas-sifiers indicate better performance compared to parametric classifier. How to cite this paper: Deus, D. (2018) Assessment of Supervised Classifiers for Land Cover Categorization Based on Integration of ALOS PALSAR and Landsat Data. Advances in Remote Sensing, 7, 47-60.