Improving Land Use/Cover Classification Accuracy from Random Forest Feature Importance Selection Based on Synergistic Use of Sentinel Data and Digital Elevation Model in Agriculturally Dominated Landscape

Land use and land cover (LULC) mapping can be of great help in changing land use decisions, but accurate mapping of LULC categories is challenging, especially in semi-arid areas with extensive farming systems and seasonal vegetation phenology. Machine learning algorithms are now widely used for LULC mapping because they provide analytical capabilities for LULC classification. However, the use of machine learning algorithms to improve classification performance is still being explored. The objective of this study is to investigate how to improve the performance of LULC models to reduce prediction errors. To address this question, the study applied a Random Forest (RF) based feature selection approach using Sentinel-1, -2, and Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) data. Results from RF show that the Sentinel-2 data only achieved an out-of-bag overall accuracy of 84.2%, while the Sentinel-1 and SRTM data achieved 83% and 76.44%, respectively. Classification accuracy improved to 89.1% when Sentinel-2, Sentinel-1 backscatter, and SRTM data were combined. This represents a 4.9% improvement in overall accuracy compared to Sentinel-2 alone and a 6.1% and 12.66% improvement compared to Sentinel-1 and SRTM data, respectively. Further independent validation, based on equally sized stratified random samples, consistently found a 5.3% difference between the Sentinel-2 and the combined datasets. This study demonstrates the importance of the synergy between optical, radar, and elevation data in improving the accuracy of LULC maps. In principle, the LULC maps produced in this study could help decision-makers in a wide range of spatial planning applications.