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Remote Sensing in University of Warsaw: Celebrating 60th Anniversary on Remote Sensing

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A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 28228

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Dr. Bogdan Zagajewski

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Department of Geoinformatics, Cartography and Remote Sensing, Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies, Warsaw University, Poland, ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 30, 00-927 Warsaw, Poland
Interests: imaging spectroscopy; classification; algorithms; vegetation; natural and semi-natural ecosystems; high-mountain and Arctic monitoring; land cover mapping
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The beginnings of remote sensing at the University of Warsaw date back to 1962, when normal teaching program on photointerpretation of aerial photographs began. First, the course was addressed to students of geography. Over the years, appropriate equipment and new teaching programs were developed, allowing both staff members and students to engage in a wide range of national and international research programs focusing on the development of field, UAS, airborne, and satellite data acquisition, processing and analyzing in research on the natural environment, e.g., UNESCO MAB reserves, European Natura 2000, national parks, polar regions, as well as agricultural areas and urban space.

As an academic unit, we teach remote sensing at all university levels (undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral studies) in different fields of the University.

The Special Issue aims to celebrate contributions in remote searing area in the past 60 years. We would like to collect a wide spectrum of the newest ideas developed by University of Warsaw staff members and our colleagues, who were our students, colleagues, friends with whom we carried out research projects, who enriched our knowledge through their constructive comments, discussions, organization of scientific meetings, and implementation of different ideas, but also pleasant conversations in which remote sensing was the key topic. At the same time, we would like to thank our teachers and older colleagues who introduced us to remote sensing, creating a place that has become part of our research and teaching passion, allowing us to find a place to fulfill our professional dreams. We would like to thank our younger colleagues, who want to spend their free time supporting us, as well.

We are open to manuscripts oriented on the newest remote sensing applications in environmental studies, agriculture, land use and land cover and urban remote sensing, geophysical research, the newest sensors and methods of data acquisition, processing and analysis, as well as education and training.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collect articles that will contribute new ideas and methods.

Dr. Bogdan Zagajewski
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

remote sensing of environment
new remote sensing sensors and data
new methods and algorithms
image processing
atmosphere correction
data mining
cloud computing
sensors
training & education
UAS
3D
urban space

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 9264 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spatial Insights into Drought Severity: Multi-Index Assessment in Małopolska, Poland, via Satellite Observations

by Jakub Staszel, Michał Lupa, Katarzyna Adamek, Michał Wilkosz, Adriana Marcinkowska-Ochtyra and Adrian Ochtyra

Remote Sens. 2024, 16(5), 836; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16050836 - 28 Feb 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1463

Abstract

This study focuses on the assessment of drought severity, employing a comparative analysis between the normalized multi-band drought index (NMDI; calculated using Sentinel-2 imagery) and the combined drought indicator (CDI). The research aims to pinpoint the most accurate and reliable remote sensing techniques, which reflect ground-based measurements, thereby enhancing the precision of drought monitoring systems. By investigating the specific area of Małopolska, the study not only contributes to the global knowledge base on drought assessment methodologies but also addresses the regional needs for improved drought management practices. Through an exhaustive analysis correlating satellite-derived indices with in situ meteorological data, this research elucidates the potential of integrating NMDI and CDI for a comprehensive understanding of drought dynamics in Małopolska. In particular, the indices depict different dynamics of drought levels, as well as the location of regions more prone to its occurrence. The findings are poised to advance drought monitoring capabilities, offering significant insights for agricultural sustainability and water resource management in the region. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in University of Warsaw: Celebrating 60th Anniversary on Remote Sensing)

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22 pages, 15127 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Airborne Hyperspectral Images and Machine Learning Algorithms for the Identification of Lupine Invasive Species in Natura 2000 Meadows

by Anita Sabat-Tomala, Edwin Raczko and Bogdan Zagajewski

Remote Sens. 2024, 16(3), 580; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16030580 - 3 Feb 2024

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1768

Abstract

The mapping of invasive plant species is essential for effective ecosystem control and planning, especially in protected areas. One of the widespread invasive plants that threatens the species richness of Natura 2000 habitats in Europe is the large-leaved lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus). In our study, this species was identified at two Natura 2000 sites in southern Poland using airborne HySpex hyperspectral images, and support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF) classifiers. Aerial and field campaigns were conducted three times during the 2016 growing season (May, August, and September). An iterative accuracy assessment was performed, and the influence of the number of minimum noise fraction (MNF) bands on the obtained accuracy of lupine identification was analyzed. The highest accuracies were obtained for the August campaign using 30 MNF bands as input data (median F1 score for lupine was 0.82–0.85), with lower accuracies for the May (F1 score: 0.77–0.81) and September (F1 score: 0.78–0.80) campaigns. The use of more than 30 MNF bands did not significantly increase the classification accuracy. The SVM and RF algorithms allowed us to obtain comparable results in both research areas (OA: 89–94%). The method of the multiple classification and thresholding of frequency images allowed the results of many predictions to be included in the final map. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in University of Warsaw: Celebrating 60th Anniversary on Remote Sensing)

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17 pages, 8577 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Why Rivers Disappear—Remote Sensing Analysis of Postmining Factors Using the Example of the Sztoła River, Poland

by Michał Lupa, Aleksandra Pełka, Mariusz Młynarczuk, Jakub Staszel and Katarzyna Adamek

Remote Sens. 2024, 16(1), 111; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16010111 - 27 Dec 2023

Viewed by 1340

Abstract

The impact of mining effects is undoubtedly an important research topic, especially in the case of assessing the effects of postmining factors. This study examines the drought in the Olkusz region using satellite imagery (Sentinel-2) and remote sensing indices. The analysis reveals that the region experienced multiple types of drought, including hydrogeological drought due to groundwater level lowering caused by mining activities, agricultural drought resulting from insufficient soil moisture, hydrological drought characterized by reduced water flow in rivers, and meteorological drought linked to decreased precipitation and high temperatures. This study demonstrates the usefulness of optical imaging and remote sensing indices in monitoring and assessing drought conditions. The results indicate significant changes in vegetation health and water content, as well as alterations to the natural environment within the region. This research highlights the importance of considering both human-induced and natural factors when evaluating drought phenomena. Continued monitoring and expansion of the study area would provide valuable insights into the long-term effects of weather conditions and the broader impacts on the ecosystem. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in University of Warsaw: Celebrating 60th Anniversary on Remote Sensing)

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26 pages, 8826 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Testing Textural Information Base on LiDAR and Hyperspectral Data for Mapping Wetland Vegetation: A Case Study of Warta River Mouth National Park (Poland)

by Anna Jarocińska, Jan Niedzielko, Dominik Kopeć, Justyna Wylazłowska, Bozhena Omelianska and Jakub Charyton

Remote Sens. 2023, 15(12), 3055; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15123055 - 11 Jun 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2029

Abstract

One of the key issues in wetland monitoring is mapping vegetation. Remote sensing and machine learning are used to acquire vegetation maps, which, due to the development of sensors and data processing and analysis methods, have increasingly high accuracy. The objectives of this study were to test: (i) which of the textural information (TI) features have the highest information potential for identifying wetland communities; and (ii) whether the use of TI improves the accuracy of wetland communities mapping using hyperspectral (HS) and Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data. The analysis indicated that the mean and entropy features of the Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix had the highest potential to differentiate between various wetland communities. Adding these features to the dataset resulted in a small increase (0.005) in average F1 accuracy based on HS data and 0.011 for HS and ALS scenarios in wetland communities classification, and adding TI improved the delineation of patch boundaries. A higher increase was noted for forest and scrub vegetation (by 0.019 for the HS scenario and 0.022 for the HS and ALS scenario) and rushes (only for the HS and ALS scenario 0.017). It can be concluded that it is reasonable to use textural information for mapping wetland communities, especially for areas with a high proportion of scrub and forest and rushes vegetation included in the analysis. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in University of Warsaw: Celebrating 60th Anniversary on Remote Sensing)

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18 pages, 4143 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Natura 2000 Grassland Habitats Mapping Based on Spectro-Temporal Dimension of Sentinel-2 Images with Machine Learning

by Adriana Marcinkowska-Ochtyra, Adrian Ochtyra, Edwin Raczko and Dominik Kopeć

Remote Sens. 2023, 15(5), 1388; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15051388 - 1 Mar 2023

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2249

Abstract

Habitat mapping is essential for the management and monitoring of Natura 2000 sites. Time-consuming field surveys are still the most frequently used solution for the implementation of the European Habitats Directive, but the use of remote sensing tools for this is becoming more common. The high temporal resolution of Sentinel-2 data, registering the visible, near, and shortwave infrared ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum, makes them valuable material in this context. In this study, we aimed to use multitemporal Sentinel-2 data for mapping three grassland Natura 2000 habitats in Poland. We performed the classification based on spectro-temporal features extracted from data collected from eight different terms within the year 2017 using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), and we also tested other widely used machine learning algorithms for comparison, such as Random Forests (RFs) and Support Vector Machines (SVMs). Based on ground truth data, we randomly selected training and validation polygons and then performed the evaluation iteratively (100 times). The best resulting median F1 accuracies that we obtained for habitats were as follows: 6210, 0.85; 6410, 0.80; and 6510, 0.84 (with SVM). Finally, we concluded that the accuracy of the results was comparable, but we obtained the best results using SVM (median OA = 88%, with 86% for RF and 84% for CNNs). In this work, we confirmed the usefulness of the spectral dimension of Sentinel-2 time series data for mapping grassland habitats, and researchers of future work can further develop the use of CNNs for this purpose. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in University of Warsaw: Celebrating 60th Anniversary on Remote Sensing)

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26 pages, 11788 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Mountain Tree Species Mapping Using Sentinel-2, PlanetScope, and Airborne HySpex Hyperspectral Imagery

by Marcin Kluczek, Bogdan Zagajewski and Tomasz Zwijacz-Kozica

Remote Sens. 2023, 15(3), 844; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15030844 - 2 Feb 2023

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 5514

Abstract

Europe’s mountain forests, which are naturally valuable areas due to their high biodiversity and well-preserved natural characteristics, are experiencing major alterations, so an important component of monitoring is obtaining up-to-date information concerning species composition, extent, and location. An important aspect of mapping tree stands is the selection of remote sensing data that vary in temporal, spectral, and spatial resolution, as well as in open and commercial access. For the Tatra Mountains area, which is a unique alpine ecosystem in central Europe, we classified 13 woody species by iterative machine learning methods using random forest (RF) and support vector machine (SVM) algorithms of more than 1000 polygons collected in the field. For this task, we used free Sentinel-2 multitemporal satellite data (10 m pixel size, 12 spectral bands, and 21 acquisition dates), commercial PlanetScope data (3 m pixel size, 8 spectral bands, and 3 acquisitions dates), and airborne HySpex hyperspectral data (2 m pixel size, 430 spectral bands, and a single acquisition) with fusion of the data of topographic derivatives based on Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and airborne laser scanning (ALS) data. The iterative classification method achieved the highest F1-score with HySpex (0.95 RF; 0.92 SVM) imagery, but the multitemporal Sentinel-2 data cube, which consisted of 21 scenes, offered comparable results (0.93 RF; 0.89 SVM). The three images of the high-resolution PlanetScope produced slightly less accurate results (0.89 RF; 0.87 SVM). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in University of Warsaw: Celebrating 60th Anniversary on Remote Sensing)

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25 pages, 3762 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Estimations of the Ground-Level NO₂ Concentrations Based on the Sentinel-5P NO₂ Tropospheric Column Number Density Product

by Patryk Tadeusz Grzybowski, Krzysztof Mirosław Markowicz and Jan Paweł Musiał

Remote Sens. 2023, 15(2), 378; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15020378 - 7 Jan 2023

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4838

Abstract

The main objective of the presented study was to verify the potential of the Sentinel-5 Precursor (S-5P) Tropospheric NO₂ Column Number Density (NO₂ TVCD) to support air pollution monitoring in Poland. The secondary objective of this project was to establish a relationship between air pollution and meteorological conditions. The ERA-5 data together with the NO₂ TVCD product and auxiliary data were further assimilated into an artificial intelligence model in order to estimate surface NO₂ concentrations. The results revealed that the random forest method was the most accurate method for estimating the surface NO₂. The random forest model demonstrated MAE values of 3.4 μg/m³ (MAPE~37%) and 3.2 μg/m³ (MAPE~31%) for the hourly and weekly estimates, respectively. It was observed that the proposed model could be used for at least 120 days per year due to the cloud-free conditions. Further, it was found that the S-5P NO₂ TVCD was the most important variable, which explained more than 50% of the predictions. Other important variables were the nightlights, solar radiation flux, road density, population, and planetary boundary layer height. The predictions obtained with the proposed model were better fitted to the actual surface NO₂ concentrations than the CAMS median ensemble estimations (~15% better accuracy). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in University of Warsaw: Celebrating 60th Anniversary on Remote Sensing)

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22 pages, 16328 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sentinel-2 and AISA Airborne Hyperspectral Images for Mediterranean Shrubland Mapping in Catalonia

by Marlena Kycko, Bogdan Zagajewski, Marcin Kluczek, Anna Tardà, Lydia Pineda, Vicenç Palà and Jordi Corbera

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(21), 5531; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14215531 - 2 Nov 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3001

Abstract

The Mediterranean ecosystem exhibits a particular geology and climate, which is characterized by mild, rainy winters and long, very hot summers with low precipitation; it has led to the emergence of resilient plant species. Such habitats contain a preponderance of shrubs, and collectively harbor 10% of the Earth’s species, thus containing some of the most unique shrubby formations protecting against environmental natural degradation. Due to shrub species diversity, initial phases of forestland, heterogenous grasses, bare ground and stones, the monitoring of such areas is difficult. For this reason, the aim of this paper is to assess semi-automatic classifications of the shrubby formations based on multispectral Sentinel-2 and visible and near infrared (VINR) AISA-EAGLE II hyperspectral airborne images with a support of Canopy High Model (CHM) as a three-dimensional information and field-verified patterns, based on Match-T/DSM and aerial photos. Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Random Forest (RF) classifiers have been tested on a few scenarios featuring different combinations of spectral and Minimum Noise Fraction (MNF) transformed bands and vegetation indices. Referring to the results, the average overall accuracy for the SVM and AISA images (all tested data sets) was 78.23%, and for the RF: 79.85%. In the case of Sentinel-2, the SVM classifier obtained an average value of 83.63%, while RF: 85.32%; however, in the case of the shrubland, we would like to recommend the RF classifier, because the highest mean value of F1-score achieved was 91.86% (SVM offered few-percent-point worse results), and the required training time was quicker than SVM. Commonly available Sentinel-2 data offered higher accuracies for shrubland monitoring than did the airborne VNIR data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in University of Warsaw: Celebrating 60th Anniversary on Remote Sensing)

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25 pages, 23203 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Airborne HySpex Hyperspectral Versus Multitemporal Sentinel-2 Images for Mountain Plant Communities Mapping

by Marcin Kluczek, Bogdan Zagajewski and Marlena Kycko

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(5), 1209; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14051209 - 1 Mar 2022

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 4147

Abstract

Climate change and anthropopression significantly impact plant communities by leading to the spread of expansive and alien invasive plants, thus reducing their biodiversity. Due to significant elevation gradients, high-mountain plant communities in a small area allow for the monitoring of the most important environmental changes. Additionally, being a tourist attraction, they are exposed to direct human influence (e.g., trampling). Airborne hyperspectral remote sensing is one of the best data sources for vegetation mapping, but flight campaign costs limit the repeatability of surveys. A possible alternative approach is to use satellite data from the Copernicus Earth observation program. In our study, we compared multitemporal Sentinel-2 data with HySpex airborne hyperspectral images to map the plant communities on Tatra Mountains based on open-source R programing implementation of Random Forest and Support Vector Machine classifiers. As high-mountain ecosystems are adapted to topographic conditions, the input of Digital Elevation Model (DEM) derivatives on the classification accuracy was analyzed and the effect of the number of training pixels was tested to procure practical information for field campaign planning. For 13 classes (from rock scree communities and alpine grasslands to montane conifer and deciduous forests), we achieved results in the range of 76–90% F1-score depending on the data set. Topographic features: digital terrain model (DTM), normalized digital surface model (nDSM), and aspect and slope maps improved the accuracy of HySpex spectral images, transforming their minimum noise fraction (MNF) bands and Sentinel-2 data sets by 5–15% of the F1-score. Maps obtained on the basis of HySpex imagery (2 m; 430 bands) had a high similarity to maps obtained on the basis of multitemporal Sentinel-2 data (10 m; 132 bands; 11 acquisition dates), which was less than one percentage point for classifications based on 500–1000 pixels; for sets consisting of 50–100 pixels, Random Forest (RF) offered better accuracy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in University of Warsaw: Celebrating 60th Anniversary on Remote Sensing)

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