Impervious surface mapping with Quickbird imagery

This research selects two study areas with different urban developments, sizes and spatial patterns to explore suitable methods for mapping impervious surface distribution using Quickbird imagery. The selected methods include per-pixel based supervised classification, segmentation-based classification and a hybrid method. A comparative analysis of the results indicates that per-pixel based supervised classification produces a large number of 'salt-and-pepper' pixels, and segmentation-based methods can significantly reduce this problem. However, neither method can effectively solve the spectral confusion of impervious surfaces with water/wetland and bare soils and the impacts of shadows. To accurately map impervious surface distribution from Quickbird images, manual editing is necessary and may be the only way to extract impervious surfaces from the confused land covers and the shadow problem. This research indicates that the hybrid method consisting of thresholding techniques, unsupervised classification and limited manual editing provides the best performance.