Abstract
In the context of climate stress, urbanisation and population growth, design and planning tools that assist in decentralised and environmental infrastructural planning are becoming more common. In order to support the design of increasingly complex urban water infrastructure systems; accurate and easily obtainable spatial databases describing land cover types are crucial. Accordingly, a methodology categorizing land covers that supplements these tools is proposed. Utilizing GIS imagery of high spatial accuracy that is easily obtainable from flyover techniques, radiometric and geometric data is generated to create a multi-functional classification of urban land cover, designed to be applicable to various urban planning tools serving different purposes, e.g. urban water management. The methodology develops 13 individual land cover categories based on the complete capabilities of the NDVI and nDSM imagery, which is then adapted to suit planning tool requirements. Validation via a case study application at Innsbruck (Austria), an overall classification accuracy of 89.3 % was achieved. The accuracy of the process was limited in differentiating certain categories (e.g. Dry Grass and Concrete, Trees and Irrigated Grass, etc.), which could yield limitations subject to intended model applications. Despite this, the classification results yielded high accuracy, demonstrating the methodology can be utilised by various software to improve urban water management analysis.
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Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the Austrian Climate and Energy Fund in the Austrian Climate Research Program (Project No. KR16AC0K13143).
Funding
This work was funded by the Austrian Climate and Energy Fund in the Austrian Climate Research Program (Project No. KR16AC0K13143).
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O. Hiscock and Y. Back were primarily responsible for the research conducted to inform this paper. O. Hiscock was fully responsible for drafting of the paper and coordinating reviews and submission, while Y. Back, M Kleidorfer and C. Urich supported in a full review of the paper.
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Hiscock, O.H., Back, Y., Kleidorfer, M. et al. A GIS-based Land Cover Classification Approach Suitable for Fine‐scale Urban Water Management. Water Resour Manage 35, 1339–1352 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-021-02790-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-021-02790-x