Spatial Analysis of Intra-Annual Reed Ecosystem Dynamics at Lake Neusiedl Using RGB Drone Imagery and Deep Learning

Autor(en)

Claudia Buchsteiner, Pamela Alessandra Baur, Stephan Glatzel

Abstrakt

The reed belt of Lake Neusiedl, covering half the size of the lake, is subject to massive changes due to the strong decline of the water level over the last several years, especially in 2021. In this study, we investigated the spatial and temporal variations within a long-term ecosystem research (LTER) site in a reed ecosystem at Lake Neusiedl in Austria under intense drought conditions. Spatio-temporal data sets from May to November 2021 were produced to analyze and detect changes in the wetland ecosystem over a single vegetation period. High-resolution orthomosaics processed from RGB imagery taken with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) served as the basis for land cover classification and phenological analysis. An image annotation workflow was developed, and deep learning techniques using semantic image segmentation were applied to map land cover changes. The trained models delivered highly favorable results in terms of the assessed performance metrics. When considering the region between their minima and maxima, the water surface area decreased by 26.9%, the sediment area increased by 23.1%, and the vegetation area increased successively by 10.1% over the investigation period. Phenocam data for lateral phenological monitoring of the vegetation development of Phragmites australis was directly compared with phenological analysis from aerial imagery. This study reveals the enormous dynamics of the reed ecosystem of Lake Neusiedl, and additionally confirms the importance of remote sensing via drone and the strengths of deep learning for wetland classification.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Geographie und Regionalforschung

Journal

Remote Sensing

Band

15

ISSN

2072-4292

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15163961

Publikationsdatum

08-2023

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

106026 Ökosystemforschung, 105906 Umweltgeowissenschaften, 105405 Geoökologie, 207402 Fernerkundung

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Allgemeine Erdkunde und Planetologie

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 15 – Leben an Land

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/8a137e19-2bac-457b-9c5b-cacb1acf3e86