GEOSTATISTICAL UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS IN SEDIMENT GRAIN SIZE MAPPING WITH HIGH-RESOLUTION REMOTE SENSING IMAGERY

This paper presents a geostatistical methodology to model local uncertainty in spatial estimation of sediment grain size with high-resolution remote sensing imagery. Within a multi-Gaussian framework, the IKONOS imagery is used as local means both to estimate the grain size values and to model local uncertainty at unsample locations. A conditional cumulative distribution function (ccdf) at any locations is defined by mean and variance values which can be estimated by multi-Gaussian kriging with local means. Two ccdf statistics including condition variance and interquartile range are used here as measures of local uncertainty and are compared through a cross validation analysis. In addition to local uncertainty measures, the probabilities of not exceeding or exceeding any grain size value at any locations are retrieved and mapped from the local ccdf models. A case study of Baramarae beach, Korea is carried out to illustrate the potential of geostatistical uncertainty modeling.