An automated procedure for detection of IDP's dwellings using VHR satellite imagery

This paper presents the results for the estimation of dwellings structures in Al Salam IDP Camp, Southern Darfur, based on Very High Resolution multispectral satellite images obtained by implementation of Mathematical Morphology analysis. A series of image processing procedures, feature extraction methods and textural analysis have been applied in order to provide reliable information about dwellings structures. One of the issues in this context is related to similarity of the spectral response of thatched dwellings' roofs and the surroundings in the IDP camps, where the exploitation of multispectral information is crucial. This study shows the advantage of automatic extraction approach and highlights the importance of detailed spatial and spectral information analysis based on multi-temporal dataset. The additional data fusion of high-resolution panchromatic band with lower resolution multispectral bands of WorldView-2 satellite has positive influence on results and thereby can be useful for humanitarian aid agency, providing support of decisions and estimations of population especially in situations when frequent revisits by space imaging system are the only possibility of continued monitoring.