ECOSEG - Development of a spatio-temporal segmentation algorithm for satellite time series to monitor forest condition

Context and objectives

Various studies have explored the use of satellite time series to describe the seasonal dynamics of vegetation. Typically, the approaches do not take into account the spatial or hierarchical context of the data. Hence, the aim of ECOSEG project was to improve the integration of temporal information into hierarchical image segmentation by the development of a new enhanced multi-temporal hierarchical image segmentation (EMTHIS) methodology.

The proposed project encompassed three objectives: (1) improvement of MTHIS via the development of a new methodology (EMTHIS) to hierarchically cluster image time series data into similar spatio-temporal segments at a range of scales, (2) implementation, validation and optimization of EMTHIS on remote sensing datasets and (3) dissemination of EMTHIS tool to international scientific community. A novel conceptual methodology was in this context introduced to achieve the first objective. The second objective consisted in the implementation, validation and optimization of EMTHIS on remote sensing datasets by looking at spatial and temporal responses to stress agents in forests (such as insects and pathogens to drought and fire). Finally the developed methodologies and tools were disseminated to the international scientific community.