This paper proposes a simple and fast method for the identification of structural changes affecting buildings in urban environments by using a combination of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery and Geospatial Information System (GIS) processing. The identification of changes in urban settlements is of great interest for damage assessment after natural disasters, cadastral mapping and monitoring urban development or illegal activities, such as the construction of unauthorized buildings. Satellite remote sensing is useful in this scenario and SAR data is attractive due to its wide and ubiquitous coverage, the day and night all-weather availability, the exact repetition of the acquisition geometry, the repeated illumination and the sensitivity to slight changes in the geometrical structure of the targets in the scene. This sensibility is an advantage, but turns into a drawback especially in an urban environment where every subtle change may cause an unwanted detection. This environment is indeed one of the most challenging for the detection of those changes that are of any real interest since these events are masked by thousands of irrelevant detections. This paper tackle this problem with a combination of an improved, high-resolution coherent change detection technique called M-CCD and with a GIS post-processing. The result is a map of changes affecting buildings that are of a significant scale and consequently of a certain interest in an urban environment. In this contribution, the complete workflow is detailed and an assessment of the detected changes is done with high resolution optical images through visual photo-interpretation. A comparison with other SAR and optical change detection methods is also carried out.

Joint exploitation of spaceborne SAR images and GIS techniques for urban coherent change detection

Manzoni M.;Monti-Guarnieri A.;Molinari M. E.
2021-01-01

Abstract

This paper proposes a simple and fast method for the identification of structural changes affecting buildings in urban environments by using a combination of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery and Geospatial Information System (GIS) processing. The identification of changes in urban settlements is of great interest for damage assessment after natural disasters, cadastral mapping and monitoring urban development or illegal activities, such as the construction of unauthorized buildings. Satellite remote sensing is useful in this scenario and SAR data is attractive due to its wide and ubiquitous coverage, the day and night all-weather availability, the exact repetition of the acquisition geometry, the repeated illumination and the sensitivity to slight changes in the geometrical structure of the targets in the scene. This sensibility is an advantage, but turns into a drawback especially in an urban environment where every subtle change may cause an unwanted detection. This environment is indeed one of the most challenging for the detection of those changes that are of any real interest since these events are masked by thousands of irrelevant detections. This paper tackle this problem with a combination of an improved, high-resolution coherent change detection technique called M-CCD and with a GIS post-processing. The result is a map of changes affecting buildings that are of a significant scale and consequently of a certain interest in an urban environment. In this contribution, the complete workflow is detailed and an assessment of the detected changes is done with high resolution optical images through visual photo-interpretation. A comparison with other SAR and optical change detection methods is also carried out.
2021
CCD
Change detection
GIS
SAR
Urban
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
Joint-exploitation-of-spaceborne-SAR-images-and-GIS-techniques-for-urban-coherent-change-detection2021Remote-Sensing-of-Environment.pdf

Accesso riservato

: Publisher’s version
Dimensione 13.3 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
13.3 MB Adobe PDF   Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/1166666
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 17
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 13
social impact