Stratifying land use/land cover for spatial analysis of disease ecology and risk: an example using object-based classification techniques

Koch, David E. and Mohler, Rhett L. and Goodin, Douglas G. (2007) Stratifying land use/land cover for spatial analysis of disease ecology and risk: an example using object-based classification techniques. Geospatial health , 2 (1). pp. 15-28. ISSN 1970-7096

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Abstract

Landscape epidemiology has made significant strides recently, driven in part by increasing availability of land cover data derived from remotely-sensed imagery. Using an example from a study of land cover effects on hantavirus dynamics at an Atlantic Forest site in eastern Paraguay, we demonstrate how automated classification methods can be used to stratify remotely-sensed land cover for studies of infectious disease dynamics. For this application, it was necessary to develop a scheme that could yield both land cover and land use data from the same classification. Hypothesizing that automated discrimination between classes would be more accurate using an object-based method compared to a per-pixel method, we used a single Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper+ (ETM+) image to classify land cover into eight classes using both per-pixel and object-based classification algorithms. Our results show that the objectbased method achieves 84% overall accuracy, compared to only 43% using the per-pixel method. Producer’s and user’s accuracies for the object-based map were higher for every class compared to the per-pixel classification. The Kappa statistic was also significantly higher for the object-based classification. These results show the importance of using image information from domains beyond the spectral domain, and also illustrate the importance of object-based techniques for remote sensing applications in epidemiological studies.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	landscape epidemiology, land use, land cover, remote sensing, object-based classification, hantavirus, Paraguay
Subjects:	600 Tecnologia - Scienze applicate > 610 Medicina e salute (Classificare qui la tecnologia dei servizi medici) > 614 Medicina legale; incidenza delle malattie; Medicina preventiva pubblica > 614.4 Incidenza delle malattie e misure pubblica per prevenirle (classificare qui l'Epidemiologia, l'Epidemiologia clinica) 600 Tecnologia - Scienze applicate > 620 Ingegneria e attivita' affini > 621 Fisica applicata; Ingegneria meccanica > 621.3 Ingegneria elettrotecnica; Illuminazione; Superconduttivita'; Ingegneria magnetica; Ottica applicata; Tecnologia parafotica; Elettronica; Ingegneria delle comunicazioni; Elaboratori > 621.36 Ingegneria ottica (classificare qui l'Ottica applicata; le opere sulla tecnologia dell'infrarosso e dell'ultravioletto insieme) > 621.367 Fotografia tecnica e Foto-ottica (classificare qui l'elaborazione delle immagini, l'elaborazione ottica dei dati) > 621.3678 Tecnologia del rilevamento a distanza
Depositing User:	Users 66 not found.
Date Deposited:	17 Jun 2010 12:37
Last Modified:	17 Jun 2010 12:37
URI:	http://eprints.bice.rm.cnr.it/id/eprint/2803

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