Wetland Mapping Using Multi-Spectral Satellite Imagery and Deep Convolutional Neural Networks: A Case Study in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Abstract Due to the advent of powerful parallel processing tools, including modern Graphics Processing Units (GPU), new deep learning algorithms, such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), have significantly altered the state-of-the-art algorithms in satellite classification of complex environments. Recent studies have demonstrated that the generic feature maps extracted from CNNs are incredibly effective in wetland classification. The main drawback of very deep CNNs is described as structurally complex, causing the need for extensive training data. To address deep Convolutional Neural Network’s limitations, a timely and computationally efficient CNN architecture is proposed in this paper. The results of the proposed model were compared to other well-known CNNs (i.e., GoogleNet and SqueezeNet) and several machine learning algorithms, including Random Forest, Gaussian Naïve Bayes, and the Bayesian Optimized Tree. Results showed while significantly reduced the training time, the proposed deep learning method outperformed GoogleNet and SqueezeNet by about 12.71% and 12.2% in terms of mean overall accuracy, respectively. The classification results shown that the accuracy of wetland classes (fen, marsh, swamp, and shallow water) were significantly improved by applying the proposed CNN method.