kth.sePublications KTH
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
RADARSAT constellation mission compact polarisation SAR data for burned area mapping with deep learning
KTH, School of Architecture and the Built Environment (ABE), Urban Planning and Environment, Geoinformatics.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4230-2467
KTH, School of Architecture and the Built Environment (ABE), Urban Planning and Environment, Geoinformatics.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1369-3216
2025 (English)In: International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, ISSN 1569-8432, E-ISSN 1872-826X, Vol. 141, article id 104615Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Monitoring wildfires has become increasingly critical due to the sharp rise in wildfire incidents in recent years. Optical satellites like Sentinel-2 and Landsat are extensively utilised for mapping burned areas. However, the effectiveness of optical sensors is compromised by clouds and smoke, which obstruct the detection of burned areas. Thus, satellites equipped with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), such as dual-polarisation Sentinel-1 and quad-polarisation RADARSAT-1/-2 C-band SAR, which can penetrate clouds and smoke, are investigated for mapping burned areas. However, there is limited research on using compact polarisation (compact-pol) C-band RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) SAR data for this purpose. This study aims to investigate the capacity of compact polarisation RCM data for burned area mapping through deep learning. Compact-pol m-χ decomposition and Compact-pol Radar Vegetation Index (CpRVI) are derived from the RCM Multi-Look Complex product. A deep-learning-based processing pipeline incorporating ConvNet-based and Transformer-based models is applied for burned area mapping, with three different input settings: using only log-ratio dual-polarisation intensity images, using only compact-pol decomposition plus CpRVI, and using all three data sources. The training dataset comprises 46,295 patches, generated from 12 major wildfire events in Canada. The test dataset includes seven wildfire events from the 2023 and 2024 Canadian wildfire seasons in Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec and the Northwest Territories. The results demonstrate that compact-pol m-χ decomposition and CpRVI images significantly complement log-ratio images for burned area mapping. The best-performing Transformer-based model, UNETR, trained with log-ratio, m-χ m-decomposition, and CpRVI data, achieved an F1 Score of 0.718 and an IoU Score of 0.565, showing a notable improvement compared to the same model trained using only log-ratio images (F1 Score: 0.684, IoU Score: 0.557). This is the first study to demonstrate that RCM C-band SAR data and its derived features are effective for burned area mapping.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier BV , 2025. Vol. 141, article id 104615
Keywords [en]
Burned area mapping, Compact polarisation, Decomposition, Deep learning, Radar vegetation index, RADARSAT constellation mission, SAR
National Category
Earth Observation Signal Processing
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-366003DOI: 10.1016/j.jag.2025.104615ISI: 001515278300001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105007558441OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-366003DiVA, id: diva2:1981503
Note

Not duplicate with DiVA 1913771

QC 20250704

Available from: 2025-07-04 Created: 2025-07-04 Last updated: 2025-09-22Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Zhao, YuBan, Yifang

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Zhao, YuBan, Yifang
By organisation
Geoinformatics
In the same journal
International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation
Earth ObservationSignal Processing

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 38 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf