Evaluation of Orthomosics and Digital Surface Models Derived from Aerial Imagery for Crop Type Mapping

Abstract

Orthomosics and digital surface models (DSM) derived from aerial imagery, acquired by consumer-grade cameras, have the potential for crop type mapping. In this study, a novel method was proposed for extracting the crop height from DSM and for evaluating the orthomosics and crop height for the identification of crop types (mainly corn, cotton, and sorghum). The crop height was extracted by subtracting the DSM derived during the crop growing season from that derived after the crops were harvested. Then, the crops were identified from four-band aerial imagery (blue, green, red, and near-infrared) and the crop height, using an object-based classification method and a maximum likelihood method. The results showed that the extracted crop height had a very high linear correlation with the field measured crop height, with an R-squared value of 0.98. For the object-based method, crops could be identified from the four-band airborne imagery and crop height, with an overall accuracy of 97.50% and a kappa coefficient of 0.95, which were 2.52% and 0.04 higher than those without crop height, respectively. When considering the maximum likelihood, crops could be mapped from the four-band airborne imagery and crop height with an overall accuracy of 78.52% and a kappa coefficient of 0.67, which were 2.63% and 0.04 higher than those without crop height, respectively.

Keywords

• aerial imagery
• crop mapping
• consumer-grade cameras
• crop height
• object-based classification