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ARS Home » Plains Area » Sidney, Montana » Northern Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory » Pest Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #131694
Title: ESTIMATION OF LEAFY SPURGE COVER FROM HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGERY USING MIXTURE TUNED MATCHED FILTERING

Author
item PARKER WILLIAMS, A - UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
item Hunt Jr, Earle

Submitted to: Remote Sensing of Environment
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/7/2002
Publication Date: 10/10/2002
Citation: Parker Williams, A., Hunt Jr, E.R. 2002. ESTIMATION OF LEAFY SPURGE COVER FROM HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGERY USING MIXTURE TUNED MATCHED FILTERING. Remote Sensing of Environment. 82(2-3): 446-456.

Interpretive Summary: Leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula L.) is an adventive, perennial weed that infests approximately 1.2 million hectares of land in North America. It often forms dense stands that displace native vegetation and useful forage plants on rangelands and in riparian habitats. Leafy spurge is a good candidate for detection via remote sensing because the distinctive yellow-green color of its bracts is spectrally unique when compared to co-occurring green vegetation. During 1999, Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) imagery was acquired in northeastern Wyoming and ground cover data were collected. Mixture Tuned Matched Filtering (MTMF), a specialized type of spectral mixture analysis, was used to estimate leafy spurge canopy cover and map leafy spurge distribution. Overall performance of MTMF for estimating percent cover of leafy spurge for all sites was good (r2 = 0.69) with better performance in prairie areas (r2 = 0.79) and poorer performance occurring on wooded sites (r2 = 0.57). However, results demonstrated that in open canopies that have leafy spurge growing in the understory, its spectral signature is sufficiently distinct to be detectable. The techniques presented here could be used for constructing leafy spurge distribution and abundance maps with satellite hyperspectral data for larger regional areas.

Technical Abstract: Leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula L.) is an adventive, perennial weed that infests approximately 1.2 million hectares of land in North America. It often forms dense stands that displace native vegetation and useful forage plants on rangelands and in riparian habitats. One of the fundamental needs in leafy spurge management is cost-effective, large- scale, and long-term documentation and monitoring of plant populations. Leafy spurge is a good candidate for detection via remote sensing because the distinctive yellow-green color of its bracts is spectrally unique when compared to co-occurring green vegetation. Hyperspectral remote sensing uses many contiguous, narrow bands in the visible and short-wave infrared wavelengths to obtain a reflectance spectrum. During 1999, Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer imagery was acquired in northeastern Wyoming and ground cover data were collected. A specialized technique for hyperspectral image analysis, which was previously used for geological applications, was used to estimate leafy spurge canopy cover and map leafy spurge distribution. The accuracy of detection varied with land cover, excellent accuracy in rangelands, and less accuracy in woodlands. For woodlands with open canopies that have leafy spurge growing in the understory, leafy spurge is sufficiently distinct to be detectable. The techniques presented here could be used for constructing leafy spurge distribution and abundance maps with satellite hyperspectral data for larger regional areas.