Symposium no.

52

Paper no. 1141

Presentation: oral

Spectral unmixing versus spectral angle mapper for

land degradation assessment: a case study
in Southern Spain
SHRESTHA D.P. (1), MARGATE D.E. (2), ANH H.V. (3) and Van DER MEER F.
(1)
(1) International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences, P O Box 6, 7500
AA Enschede, The Netherlands
(2) Bureau of Soils and Water Management, Quezon City, Philippines
(3) Forest Science Institute, Hanoi, Vietnam
Abstract
Unlike conventional sensor systems such as Landsat-TM, Spot-MX or IRS-LISS,
which acquire data in only a few spectral bands, the development of scanner systems
that acquire data in many narrow-wavelength bands allows the use of almost continuous
reflectance data in studies of the Earths surface. This not only produces laboratory-like
reflectance spectra with absorption bands specific to object properties, but also helps
increase accuracy of mapping surface features. Classification by means of spectral
matching thus becomes more feasible. With so much information, the well-known
problem of mixed pixels can be solved by a mixture model, which is commonly
assumed to occur in a linear fashion.
In this study, we compare linear unmixing and spectral angle matching techniques
to assess the classification performance for identifying and mapping desert like
surface features in southern Spain. These features include desert pavements, calcareous,
gypsiferous and saline surface soils. Although spectral unmixing helps to assign a pixel
to a dominant class, the data is affected by illumination variations caused by
topography, so that selection of end member can be biased. By comparison, the spectral
angle matching technique compares only the angle between known and unknown
spectra, which uses only the direction and not the length of the spectral vector. It is
therefore insensitive to the gain factor caused by surface illumination conditions and
thus more suitable in areas with high illumination differences. On the other hand, linear
unmixing calculates, for each pixel, the abundance of pixel components. Present study
shows that linear unmixing seems to provide more realistic results for mapping desert
like surface features as compared to spectral angle mapper.
Keywords: hyperspectral, linear unmixing, spectral matching, spectral angle_desert
like_surface features
Introduction
The concept of desertification, considered a severe stage of land degradation, is
responsible for the manifestation of desert-like conditions especially in dryland areas
outside the desert boundaries (Rapp, 1986). Climatic conditions together with
geomorphologic processes help in molding the so-called desert-like soil surface

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features. The identification of these soil features serves as a useful input in assessing the
process of desertification and land degradation as a whole.
Hyperspectral remote sensing provides a different approach to image processing.
Conventional broadband sensors such as SPOT, Landsat MSS and Landsat TM do not
in general provide satisfactory results in mapping soil properties, because their
bandwidth of 100 to 200 m cannot resolve diagnostic spectral features of terrestrial
materials (De Jong, 1994). Hyperspectral data provide greater classification accuracies
as compared to broadband instruments (Pieters and Mustard, 1988; Kruse, 1989; Clark
et al., 1990). Increased spatial resolution also facilitates detailed surficial mapping.
However, analytical techniques developed for analysis of broadband spectral data are
incapable of taking advantage of the full range of information present in hyperspectral
remote sensing imagery (Cloutis, 1996). Since hyperspectral data allows the use of
almost continuous reflectance data in studies of the Earths surface, analysis of
reflectance spectra with absorption bands specific to object properties can be carried
out.
Study area
The study area is located in the surroundings of Tabernas in the province of
Almeria (Figure 1). The exact site corresponds to the coverage of the HYMAP airborne
hyperspectral image, with its flight line starting at 37o0232 N and 2o3014 W and
ending at 37o0425 N and 2o1640 W. The Tabernas basin is a structural depression in
the Alpine nappes of the Betic Cordilleras of southern Spain, which is bounded by
major strike-slip fault (Kleverlaan, 1989). The terrain is relatively rugged with very
sparse vegetation. The mountain ridges on north and south sides of the basin act as main
barriers for precipitation and have lead to pronounced dry conditions leading to
desertification. The climate is characterised as semi-arid with long hot summers. Annual
precipitation ranges from 115 mm to 431 mm, with rainy days varying from 25 to 55.

Figure 1 Location map of the study area at Tabernas, Almeria, Spain.

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The soils, in general, are shallow (less than 50 cm depth), except in the valleys and
occasionally on the piedmonts. On the steeper slopes they are mostly derived from the
weathering of the exposed bedrock, while in the valleys they consist of irregular
deposits of materials coming from the surrounding mountains and hillands brought
down by flash floods. Soil texture is commonly sandy loam to loamy sand with more
than 40% coarse fragments on the surface. Saline soils occur in the valleys with
electrical conductivity values of more than 2 dS m-1 Surface crusting is common
particularly in saline areas. Most of the soils are strongly calcareous with calcium
carbonate content ranging from 2-31%. Generally, soils in the hillands and piedmonts
are classified as Lithic Torriorthents and the deeper soils are Typic Torriorthents
according to the USDA Soil Taxonomy (1998). In the valleys, soils are classified as
Fluventic Haplocambids and towards the upper terraces, they are classified as Typic
Haplocambids.
Desert-like soil surface features are common in the area. The abundance of
uncovered loose materials is readily available for transport either by wind or water
leaving behind desert pavements, which are continuous layer of gravel and small stones.
They are usually formed on the surfaces of the pediments, fans and plains. Due to high
evaporation rates, lack of leaching and percolation to deeper horizons, many low-lying
areas are saline and alkaline. Calcium carbonate and gypsum are often present in
abundance, forming hard pans and contributing to the formation of surface crust.
Methods and Techniques Applied
Data collection
An airborne hyperspectral data set (HYMAP) of the study area, acquired on 2 June
1999, with spatial resolution of 5 m and covering 4 km width and 20 km length was
available. Data were collected in the field during September/October 1999 and
September 2000 (1) to characterize desert-like surface features, (2) to find characteristic
reflectance spectra of endmembers, and (2) to collect ground truth data for accuracy
assessment. Little change of land cover/use was found between these two fieldwork
periods.
Field observations were sampled using stratified random method. The thematic
strata are geomorphic units, which were delineated using geopedologic photo
interpretation approach (Zinck, 1988). Each observation point covers an area of 10 by
10 m, to make sure that at least one pixel of HYMAP falls within each observation area.
Observation in each point included information on geomorphic unit, surface soil
properties (percent gravel cover, Munsell soil colour, soil texture, calcareousness test
with 10% HCl, pH measurement and field electrical conductivity test) and land
use/cover information. The coordinates of the observation points were taken with a GPS
receiver (Garmin 12XL).
At each observation point, reflectance was measured using a field spectrometer
(GER 3700) with full real-time data acquisition from 350 to 2,500 nm Reflectance was
measured by comparing the radiance of the target with the radiance of a reference panel
made of BaSO4. In addition, reflectance was measured in the laboratory. The measured
spectra in the field and in laboratory were resampled to match the response of the
HYMAP scanner. For selecting endmembers two techniques were adopted: (1) use of
portable spectrometer in field and in laboratory, and (2) deriving endmembers from the

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purest pixels in the image. The identification of the endmembers is the most important
step in hyperspectral image classification, since entering a wrong endmember would
strongly affect the result of classification. Boardman et al. (1995) explain a procedure to
find endmembers using n-dimensional scatter plot, where n is the number of bands. To
find the purest pixels, the data are first transformed using Maximum Noise Fraction
(MNF) algorithm resulting in MNF images with decreasing signal-to-noise ratio, they
contrast to the principal component transformation which maximises variance (Green et
al., 1988). The Purest Pixel Index (PPI) is then computed by repeatedly projecting ndimensional scatter plots onto a random unit vector. The extreme pixels in each
projection are recorded and the total number of times each pixel is marked as extreme is
noted. By looking at these extreme pixels and comparing against the target spectra
taking into account the field data, characteristic spectral curves (endmembers) were
established for each of the surface features (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Established image spectra of the identified desert-like soil.

Hyperspectral image classification
The study aims to identify and determine the spatial distribution of the so-called
desert-like soil surface features by applying hyperspectral image classification. Two
classification algorithms, spectral angle mapper and linear unmixing, were applied.
Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) is one of the techniques to classify hyperspectral image.
The technique determines the similarity between two spectral by calculating the
spectral angle between them, treating them as vectors in a space with dimensionality
equal to the n number of bands (Kruse et al., 1993) (Figure 3). Since it uses only the
"direction" of the spectra, and not their "length," the method is insensitive to the
unknown gain factor, thus avoiding requirement for any preprocessing technique such
as normalization of data for uniform intensity (Shrestha and Zinck, 2001).

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Figure 3 Two-dimensional illustration on the concept of spectral angle mapper

function.
SAM determines the similarity of an unknown spectrum t to a reference spectrum r,
by applying the following equation (Kruse et al., 1993):

t
r
cos

|| . ||
||
||
t
r

(1)

t
r

i i

i=1
cos 1

0
.
5
0
.
5
n
n
t 2 r 2
i
i
i=1 i=1

(2)

which can be written as:

For each reference spectrum chosen in the analysis of a hyperspectral image, the
spectral angle, between the two spectra as calculated for each channel, i, is determined
for every image spectrum (pixel). This value, in radians, is assigned to the
corresponding pixel in the output SAM image, one output image for each reference
spectrum. The derived spectral angle maps form a new data cube with the number of
bands equal to the number of reference spectra used in the mapping.
On the other hand, it is well known that ground surfaces constituting individual
pixels of remotely sensed imagery often contain more than one land cover type, each
type contributing to the overall spectral response (spectral mixing) to that pixel. Spectral
mixing is reported to occur in a linear fashion if mixing is large (Singer and McCord,
1979) and non-linear for microscopic mixing (Nash and Conel, 1974). Extensive review
of mixture models is given by Ichoku and Karnieli (1996). With so much information,
the well-known problem of mixed pixels can be solved by a mixture model. In a linear
model, the reflectance ri, of a pixel in ith band is given by Smith et al. (1985) as follows:

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R i = (Fj .RFij ) + i
n

(3)

j=1

Where:
i=1,..,m and j=1,..,n
Ri is the reflectance of the mixed spectrum in image band i for each pixel
Fj is the fraction of each endmember j calculated by band,
REij is the reflectance of endmember spectrum j in band i
i is the band number
j is each of the endmembers and is the residual error.
m represents the number of spectral bands while n stands for the number of
components in the pixel
Each classification algorithm results in so-called rule images or endmember
images, their values indicates spectral angle in case of SAM and abundance in case of
linear unmixing. The rule images need to be classified to get the final result. For SAM,
threshold value of 0.09 radians or less was used whereas abundance of 0.50 or more was
selected for linear unmixing.
Results and discussions
The results (Figure 4 and Table 1) show that area classified as calcareous and
gypsiferous soils are similar in both the classifications. Linear unmixing shows slightly
more area (1113 ha) under desert pavement as compared to SAM classification. SAM
result shows 16 % of the total area under saline conditions whereas it is negligible
(<1%) in linear unmixing result. The unclassified area in SAM is 22% whereas it is
36% in linear unmixing. The unknown pixels are the ones which fall beyond the
threshold limits. Both techniques show classification problems. SAM classification
result shows the occurrence of saline soils in all the geomorphic units (Table 2). Since
the development of salinity in Tabernas area is due to the evaporation of ground water
which comes to the surface by capillary rise, it is very unlikely that salinity can develop
in the hills or piedmonts. On the other hand, classification by linear unmixing underestimates the salinity problem in the area.

Figure 4 Classification results.

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Table 1 Classification results.
Classes

Desert pavement
Saline soil
Calcareous soil
Gypsiferous soil
Unknown

SAM classification Result

Area (ha)
805
1247
2827
1204
1732

Linear Unmixing classification

Result
Area (ha)
Percentage
1113
14
2
<1
2610
34
1252
16
2838
36

Percentage
10
16
36
16
22

Table 2 Classification of features by geomorphic unit

Landscape
Hills

Piedmont

Valley

SAM result Desert-like

features
Desert pavement
Saline soils
Calcareous soils
Gypsiferous soils
Unknown
Desert pavement
Saline soils
Calcareous soils
Gypsiferous soils
Unknown
Desert pavement
Saline soils
Calcareous soils
Gypsiferous soils
Unknown

ha

Linear unmixing result

Desert-like features
Desert pavement
Saline soils
Calcareous soils
Gypsiferous soils
Unknown
Desert pavement
Saline soils
Calcareous soils
Gypsiferous soils
Unknown
Desert pavement
Saline soils
Calcareous soils
Gypsiferous soils
Unknown

148
483
1412
743
929
126
267
673
126
210
509
509
749
321
589

ha
252
2
1447
673
1341
171
0
599
91
542
689
<1
554
485
948

For classification accuracy assessment, an error matrix or contingency table was

constructed and the estimate of a measure of overall agreement between classification
result and ground truth data was carried out by kappa statistics (Cohen, 1960). Kappa is
computed as follows:
p pc

k = o
1 pc

(4)

where, po is the proportion of units in which there is agreement between ground

truth and the classification result, and pc is the proportion for which agreement is
expected by chance. Po and pc can be calculated using the observation numbers in the
row and columns from the error matrix as follows:
r

po =

X
i =1

ii

and p c =

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i+

i =1

N2

X +i
(5)

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SHRESTHA ET AL

where, Xi+ is the sum of the ith row and X+I is the sum of the ith column, and N is the
total number of observations. The error matrices are shown in Table 3 and 4. Overall
accuracy of linear unmixing seems to be better (0.75) as compared to SAM (0.60). The
kappa value, which takes into account not only complete agreement between the ground
truths but also the agreements by chance, shows that a large portion of the class
agreement for SAM could be due to chance agreement since its kappa value is 0.44
which is lower than the overall accuracy. For linear unmixing the kappa value is higher
(0.63).
Table 3 Error matrix for SAM classification result.
Classification
Desert
pavement

Saline
soils

Ground truth (test pixels)

Calcareous Gypsiferous Test
soils
soils
pixels

Unknown Total test

pixels

Desert
pavement

149
(0.6)

65

33

249

249

Saline soils

28

29
(0.48)

61

61

Calcareous
soils

17

26

59
(0.56)

106

24

130

Gypsiferous
soils

140

16

156

95
(0.68)
0.23
0.44
0.94
Average reliability = 0.59

Reliability
0.77
Average accuracy = 0.58

38

Overall accuracy = 0.60

Kappa value (k) = 0.44

Table 4 Error matrix for linear unmixing classification result

Desert
pavement

Desert
pavement
152
(0.95)

Saline
soils

Ground truth (test pixels)

Calcareous Gypsiferous
Test
soils
soils
pixels

Unknown Total test

pixels

159

90

249

Saline soils

33

1
(0.03)

36

25

61

Calcareous
soils

25

63
(0.71)

89

41

130

Gypsiferous
soils

134

22

156

Reliability
0.71
Average accuracy = 0.61

98
(0.73)
0.25
0.63
0.99
Average reliability = 0.64
28

Overall accuracy = 0.75

Kappa value (k) = 0.63

To test whether the two classification results were significantly different, the
method described by Cohen (1960) and elaborated by Skidmore (1999) and Rossiter
(2001) were used. The method uses the normal curve deviate statistics (z) and the kvalues (k1, k2) and their associated variance ( 2 k1 , 2 k 2 ) as follows:

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SHRESTHA ET AL
z=

k1 k 2
2 k1 2 k 2

(6)

With k1 = 0.44, k2 = 0.63, k1 = 0.0259 and k2 = 0.0338 we find that z = 4.6. This
value substantially exceeds zt= 1.96 (at = 0.05). Thus we can conclude that there is a
significant difference between the two classification results.
Conclusion
Selection of the endmembers is of utmost importance for hyperspectral
classification since choosing a wrong one can make great difference in classification
result. Although the result given by linear unmixing seems to be more realistic as
compared to SAM, one has to be very careful in applying the technique since unmixing
is purely based on the number of endmembers decided by the user. The use of ancillary
data such as geomorphic map of the area can prove to be useful in interpreting the
results.
Acknowledgements
David Rossiter reviewed this paper. His comments are duly acknowledged.
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