Tree species classification using machine learning algorithms with OHS-2 hyperspectral image

Considering the form diversity of tree species composition in the Bagong Mountain National Forest Park of China, we mapped tree species utilizing Machine Learning Algorithms (support vector machines (SVM) and random forest (RF) classifiers) based on the OHS-2 hyperspectral satellite image by different datasets which combined spectral information and hyperspectral-derived vegetation indices (VIs) for improving tree species classification and explored the best performance of them. To verify the improvement, the results of physically-based spectral classifiers (spectral angle mapper (SAM) and maximum likelihood (ML) classifiers) were applied to compare with the results of machine learning algorithms. The results indicated an overall accuracy of 94.01%, 96.08%, 82.9% and 79.3% for SVM, RF, SAM and ML classifiers of the best performance using different datasets. Highest accuracies resulted from two machine learning algorithms classifiers; SVM and RF compared to SAM and ML classifiers. Although SVM outperformed RF when using all hyperspectral bands and VIs, the overall accuracy of the RF classifier is higher when compared to the SVM classifier using VIs combined selected features. Meanwhile, the RF classifier performed better than SVM after removing the redundancy of spectral data in training samples. Moreover, the machine learning algorithms successfully classified a small number of tree species (Cedrus deodara and Pterocarya stenoptera C. DC.) in the study area, but the physical spectroscopy-based method failed to classify these species. Such integration strategy improved the effectiveness of enhancing the accuracy of tree species classification and mapping their distribution on broad spatial and temporal scales using machine learning algorithms and hyperspectral imagery.