Morphometric and Landscape Feature Analysis with Artificial Neural Networks and SRTM data : Applications in Humid and Arid Environments

Sammanfattning: This thesis presents a semi-automatic method to analyze morphometric features and landscape elements based on Self Organizing Map (SOM) as an unsupervised Artificial Neural Network algorithm in two completely different environments: 1) the Man and Biosphere Reserve “Eastern Carpathians” (Central Europe) as a complex mountainous humid area and 2) Lut Desert, Iran, a hyper arid region characterized by repetition of wind-eroded features. In 2003, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released the SRTM/ SIR-C band data with 3 arc seconds (approx. 90 m resolution) grid for approximately 80 % of Earth’s land surface. The X-band SRTM data were processed with a 1 arc second (approx. 30 m resolution) grid by the German space agency, DLR and the Italian space agency ASI, but due to the smaller X-SAR ground swath, large areas are not covered. The latest version 3.0 SRTM/C DEM and SRTM/X band DEM were re-projected to 90 and 30 m UTM grid and used to generate morphometric parameters of first order (slope) and second order (cross-sectional curvature, maximum curvatures and minimum curvature) by using a bivariate quadratic surface. The morphometric parameters are then used in a SOM to identify morphometric features (or landform elements) e.g. planar, channel, ridge in mountainous areas or yardangs (ridge) and corridors (valley) in hyper-arid areas. Geomorphic phenomena and features are scale-dependent and the characteristics of features vary when measured over different spatial extents or different spatial resolution. Morphometric parameters were derived for nine window sizes of the 90 m DEM ranging from 5 × 5 to 55 ×55. Analysis of the SOM output represents landform entities with ground areas from 450 m to 4950 m that is local to regional scale features. Effect of two SRTM resolutions, C and X bands is studied on morphometric feature identification. The difference change analysis revealed the quantity of resolution dependency of morphometric features. Increasing the DEM spatial resolution from 90 to 30 m (corresponding to X band) by interpolation resulted in a significant improvement of terrain derivatives and morphometric feature identification. Integration of morphometric parameters with climate data (e.g. Sum of active temperature above 10 ° C) in SOM resulted in delineation of morphologically homogenous discrete geo-ecological units. These units were reclassified to produce a Potential Natural Vegetation map. Finally, we combined morphometric parameters and remotely sensed spectral data from Landsat ETM+ to identify and characterize landscape elements. The single integrated data set of geo-ecosystems shows the spatial distribution of geomorphic, climatic and biotic/cultural properties in the Eastern Carpathians. The results demonstrate that a SOM is a very efficient tool to analyze geo-morphometric features under diverse environmental conditions and at different scales and resolution. Finer resolution and decreasing window size reveals information that is more detailed while increasing window size and coarser resolution emphasizes more regional patterns. It was also successfully applied to integrate climatic, morphometric parameters and Landsat ETM+ data for landscape analysis. Despite the stochastic nature of SOM, the results are not sensitive to randomization of initial weight vectors if many iterations are used. This procedure is reproducible with consistent results.