Mapping urban and peri-urban agriculture using high spatial resolution satellite data

In rapidly changing peri-urban environments where biophysical and socioeconomic processes lead to spatial fragmentation of agricultural land, remote sensing offers an efficient tool to collect land cover/land use (LCLU) data for decision-making. Compared to traditional pixel-based approaches, remote sensing with object-based classification methods is reported to achieve improved classification results in complex heterogeneous landscapes. This study assessed the usefulness of object-oriented analysis of Quickbird high spatial resolution satellite data to classify urban and peri-urban agriculture in a limited peri-urban area of Hanoi, Vietnam. The results revealed that segmentation was essential in developing the object-oriented classification approach. Accurate segmentation of shape and size of an object enhanced classification with spectral, textural, morphological, and topological features. A qualitative, visual comparison of the classification results showed successful localisation and identification of most LCLU classes. Quantitative evaluation was conducted with a classification error matrix reaching an overall accuracy of 67% and a kappa coefficient of 0.61. In general, object-oriented classification of high spatial resolution satellite data proved the promising approach for LCLU analysis at village level. Capturing small-scale urban and peri-urban agricultural diversity offers a considerable potential for environmental monitoring. Challenges remain with the delineation of field boundaries and LCLU diversity on more spatially extensive datasets.