• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.5_1
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• pp.637-654
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• 2023

In recent years, the number of users has been increasing with the rapid development of earth observation satellites. In response, the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) has been striving to provide user-friendly satellite images by introducing the concept of Analysis Ready Data (ARD) and defining its requirements as CEOS ARD for Land (CARD4L). In ARD, a mask called an Unusable Data Mask (UDM), identifying unnecessary pixels for land analysis, should be provided with a satellite image. UDMs include clouds, cloud shadows, terrain shadows, etc. Terrain shadows are generated in mountainous terrain with large terrain relief, and these areas cause errors in analysis due to their low radiation intensity. previous research on terrain shadow detection focused on detecting terrain shadow pixels to correct terrain shadows. However, this should be replaced by the terrain correction method. Therefore, there is a need to expand the purpose of terrain shadow detection. In this study, to utilize CAS500-4 for forest and agriculture analysis, we extended the scope of the terrain shadow detection to shaded areas. This paper aims to analyze the potential for terrain shadow detection to make a terrain shadow mask for South and North Korea. To detect terrain shadows, we used a Hill-shade algorithm that utilizes the position of the sun and a surface's derivatives, such as slope and aspect. Using RapidEye images with a spatial resolution of 5 meters and Sentinel-2 images with a spatial resolution of 10 meters over the Korean Peninsula, the optimal threshold for shadow determination was confirmed by comparing them with the ground truth. The optimal threshold was used to perform terrain shadow detection, and the results were analyzed. As a qualitative result, it was confirmed that the shape was similar to the ground truth as a whole. In addition, it was confirmed that most of the F1 scores were between 0.8 and 0.94 for all images tested. Based on the results of this study, it was confirmed that automatic terrain shadow detection was well performed throughout the Korean Peninsula.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.5_1
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• pp.523-533
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• 2022

This paper presents a two-stage spatio-spectral fusion method (2SSFM) based on area-to-point regression kriging (ATPRK) to enhance spatial and spectral resolutions using multi-sensor satellite images with complementary spatial and spectral resolutions. 2SSFM combines ATPRK and random forest regression to predict spectral bands at high spatial resolution from multi-sensor satellite images. In the first stage, ATPRK-based spatial down scaling is performed to reduce the differences in spatial resolution between multi-sensor satellite images. In the second stage, regression modeling using random forest is then applied to quantify the relationship of spectral bands between multi-sensor satellite images. The prediction performance of 2SSFM was evaluated through a case study of the generation of red-edge and short-wave infrared bands. The red-edge and short-wave infrared bands of PlanetScope images were predicted from Sentinel-2 images using 2SSFM. From the case study, 2SSFM could generate red-edge and short-wave infrared bands with improved spatial resolution and similar spectral patterns to the actual spectral bands, which confirms the feasibility of 2SSFM for the generation of spectral bands not provided in high spatial resolution satellite images. Thus, 2SSFM can be applied to generate various spectral indices using the predicted spectral bands that are actually unavailable but effective for environmental monitoring.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.64 no.1
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• pp.51-63
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• 2022

Up-to-date statistics of crop cultivation status is essential for farm land management planning and the advancement in remote sensing technology allows for rapid update of farming information. The objective of this study was to develop a classification model of rice paddy or winter crop fields based on NDWI, NDVI, and HSV indices using Sentinel-2 satellite images. The 18 locations in central Korea were selected as target areas and photographed once for each during summer and winter with a eBee drone to identify ground truth crop cultivation. The NDWI was used to classify summer paddy fields, while the NDVI and HSV were used and compared in identification of winter crop cultivation areas. The summer paddy field classification with the criteria of -0.195

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.31 no.9
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• pp.735-741
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• 2022

Global warming affects forests and their ecology. Diversity in the forest is a buffer that reduces the damage due to global warming. Mixed forests are ecologically more valuable as versatile habitats and are effective in preventing landslides. In Korea, most forests were created by simple afforestation with trees of evergreen species. Typically, evergreen trees are shallow-rooted, and deciduous trees are deep-rooted. Mixed forest tree roots grip the soil effectively, which reduces the occurrence of landslides. Therefore, improving the distribution of tree types is essential to reduce damage due to global warming. For this improvement, the investigation of tree types of the forest is needed. However, determining the tree type distribution of forests that are spread over wide areas is labor-intensive and time-consuming. This study suggests effective methods for determining the distribution of tree types in a forest that is spread across a relatively wide area. Using normalized difference vegetation index and RGB images from unmanned aerial vehicles, each evergreen and deciduous tree, and grassland area can be distinguished. The distinguished image determines the distribution of tree type. This method is effective compared to directly determining the tree type distribution in the forest by the use of manpower. The data from these methods could be applied to plan a mixed forest or to prepare for future damage due to global warming.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.6_1
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• pp.1341-1352
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• 2023

The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) derived from satellite images is a crucial tool to monitor forests and agriculture for broad areas because the periodic acquisition of the data is ensured. However, optical sensor-based vegetation indices(VI) are not accessible in some areas covered by clouds. This paper presented a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) based approach to retrieval of the optical sensor-based NDVI using machine learning. SAR system can observe the land surface day and night in all weather conditions. Radar vegetation indices (RVI) from the Sentinel-1 vertical-vertical (VV) and vertical-horizontal (VH) polarizations, surface elevation, and air temperature are used as the input features for an automated machine learning (AutoML) model to conduct the gap-filling of the Sentinel-2 NDVI. The mean bias error (MAE) was 7.214E-05, and the correlation coefficient (CC) was 0.878, demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed method. This approach can be applied to gap-free nationwide NDVI construction using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images for environmental monitoring and resource management.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.5_1
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• pp.835-846
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• 2020

Recent severe climate changes and extreme weather events have caused the uncommon types of forest ecosystem disturbances such as hails and gypsy moths. This paper describes the analysis of the forest ecosystem disturbances using ISODATA (Iterative Self-organizing Data Analysis Technique Algorithm) with the RapidEye and Sentinel-2 images, regarding the cases of the hail damages in Hwasun in 2017 and the gypsy moth damages in the Chiak Mountain in 2020. In the case of hail damages, the comparison of the June image of this study and the July field survey of the previous study showed that the damage severity increased from June to July as the drought overlapped after the trees were injured by the hails. In the case of gypsy moths, significant leaf damages were found from the image of June, and the damages were mainly distributed at the low-altitude slope near Wonju City. We made sure that satellite remote sensing is a very effective method to detect various and unusual forest ecosystem disturbances caused by climate change. Also, it is expected that the Korean Medium Satellite for Agriculture and Forestry scheduled to launch in 2024 can be actively utilized to monitor such forest ecosystem disturbances.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.121-133
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• 2021

Suspended Solids (SS) generated in rivers are mainly introduced from non-point pollutants or appear naturally in the water body, and are an important water quality factor that may cause long-term water pollution by being deposited. However, the conventional method of measuring the concentration of suspended solids is labor-intensive, and it is difficult to obtain a vast amount of data via point measurement. Therefore, in this study, a model for measuring the concentration of suspended solids based on remote sensing in the Nakdong River was developed using Sentinel-2 data that provides high-resolution multi-spectral satellite images. The proposed model considers the spectral bands and band ratios of various wavelength bands using a machine learning model, Support Vector Regression (SVR), to overcome the limitation of the existing remote sensing-based regression equations. The optimal combination of variables was derived using the Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) and weight coefficients for each variable of SVR. The results show that the 705nm band belonging to the red-edge wavelength band was estimated as the most important spectral band, and the proposed SVR model produced the most accurate measurement compared with the previous regression equations. By using the RFE, the SVR model developed in this study reduces the variable dependence compared to the existing regression equations based on the single spectral band or band ratio and provides more accurate prediction of spatial distribution of suspended solids concentration.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.463-472
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• 2023

The amount of damage and the area of damage to forest fires are increasing globally, and the effectiveness analysis of the restoration method after the damage is performed insufficient. This study calculated the area of forest fire damage was calculated using Sentinel-2B satellite images and stack map and the intensity of forest fire damage is analyzed according to the forest type. In addition, the vegetation index was calculated using various wavelength bands. Based on the results, the vegetation resilience by the restoration method was quantitatively. As results, areas with a high proportion of coniferous forests suffered high intensity forest fire damage, and areas with a relatively high ratio of mixed and broad-leaved forests tended to have low forest fire damage. Also, artificial forests showed a recovery of about 92.7% compared to before forest fires and natural forests showed a recovery of about 99.6% from the result of analyzing vegetation resilience in artificial and natural forests after forest fires. Accordingly, it was confirmed that natural forests after forest fire damage had superior vegetation resilience compared to artificial forests. It can be proposed that this study is meaningful in providing important information for efficiently restoring the affected target site and the selection criteria for trees to reduce forest fire damage through the evaluation of vegetation resilience by the intensity of forest fire damage and restoration methods.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.6_2
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• pp.1509-1521
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• 2020

Experiments for validation of surface reflectance produced by Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite (KOMPSAT-3A) were conducted using Chinese Baotou (BTCN) data among four sites of the Radical Calibration Network (RadCalNet), a portal that provides spectrophotometric reflectance measurements. The atmosphere reflectance and surface reflectance products were generated using an extension program of an open-source Orfeo ToolBox (OTB), which was redesigned and implemented to extract those reflectance products in batches. Three image data sets of 2016, 2017, and 2018 were taken into account of the two sensor model variability, ver. 1.4 released in 2017 and ver. 1.5 in 2019, such as gain and offset applied to the absolute atmospheric correction. The results of applying these sensor model variables showed that the reflectance products by ver. 1.4 were relatively well-matched with RadCalNet BTCN data, compared to ones by ver. 1.5. On the other hand, the reflectance products obtained from the Landsat-8 by the USGS LaSRC algorithm and Sentinel-2B images using the SNAP Sen2Cor program were used to quantitatively verify the differences in those of KOMPSAT-3A. Based on the RadCalNet BTCN data, the differences between the surface reflectance of KOMPSAT-3A image were shown to be highly consistent with B band as -0.031 to 0.034, G band as -0.001 to 0.055, R band as -0.072 to 0.037, and NIR band as -0.060 to 0.022. The surface reflectance of KOMPSAT-3A also indicated the accuracy level for further applications, compared to those of Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2B images. The results of this study are meaningful in confirming the applicability of Analysis Ready Data (ARD) to the surface reflectance on high-resolution satellites.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.53 no.11
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• pp.973-983
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• 2020

Recently, SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) is being highlighted as a solution to the coarse spatial resolution of remote sensing data in water resources research field. Spatial resolution up to 10 m of SAR backscattering coefficient has facilitated more elaborate analyses of the spatial distribution of soil moisture, compared to existing satellite-based coarse resolution (>10 km) soil moisture data. It is essential, however, to multilaterally analyze how various hydrological and environmental factors affect the backscattering coefficient, to utilize the data. In this study, soil moisture estimated by WCM (Water Cloud Model) and linear regression is compared with in-situ soil moisture data at 5 soil moisture observatories in the Korean peninsula. WCM shows suitable estimates for observing instant changes in soil moisture. However, it needs to be adjusted in terms of errors. Soil moisture estimated from linear regression shows a stable error range, but it cannot capture instant changes. The result also shows that the effect of soil moisture on backscattering coefficients differs greatly by land cover, distribution of vegetation, and water content of vegetation, hence that there're still limitations to apply preexisting models directly. Therefore, it is crucial to analyze variable effects from different environments and establish suitable soil moisture model, to apply SAR to water resources fields in Korea.