Nooni Et Al. 2014

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Support vector machine to map oil

palm in a heterogeneous environment
a b a c
I.K. Nooni , A.A. Duker , I. Van Duren , L. Addae-Wireko & E.M.
b
Osei Jnr
a
Department of Natural Resources, Faculty for Geo-information
Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente, Enschede,
The Netherlands
b
Geomatic Engineering Department, Faculty of Civil and
Geomatic Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science &
Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
c
Wildlife & Range Management Department, Faculty of
Renewable Natural Resources, Kwame Nkrumah University of
Science & Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
Published online: 25 Jul 2014.
To cite this article: I.K. Nooni, A.A. Duker, I. Van Duren, L. Addae-Wireko & E.M. Osei Jnr (2014)
Support vector machine to map oil palm in a heterogeneous environment, International Journal of
Remote Sensing, 35:13, 4778-4794, DOI: 10.1080/01431161.2014.930201
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2014.930201
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International Journal of Remote Sensing, 2014
Vol. 35, No. 13, 4778–4794, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2014.930201
Support vector machine to map oil palm in a heterogeneous

environment
I.K. Noonia*, A.A. Dukerb, I. Van Durena, L. Addae-Wirekoc, and E.M. Osei Jnrb
a
Department of Natural Resources, Faculty for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation,
University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands; bGeomatic Engineering Department, Faculty of
Civil and Geomatic Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology, Kumasi,
Ghana; cWildlife & Range Management Department, Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources,
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
(Received 31 July 2013; accepted 19 May 2014)
Support vector machines (SVMs) have been frequently shown to result in more
accurate classification than other image classification methods. However, few studies
have successfully quantified their performance for mapping oil palm plantations.
Various sustainability criteria developed by the Round Table on Sustainable Palm
Oil (RSPO) have a spatial component but they provide little guidance on mapping
oil-palm-related cover changes. SVM and maximum likelihood classifier (MLC)
classification approaches in classifying oil palm plantations with Landsat ETM+
were compared. The best combination of three bands from the satellite image was
selected based on Bhattacharyya distance. SVM and MLC performance was evaluated
using overall accuracy assessment and kappa statistics. Bands 4, 5, and 3 provided the
best spectral separability indices based on Bhattacharyya distance. SVM classification
resulted in an overall accuracy of 78.3% (kappa statistic 0.73) compared with MLC,
with an overall accuracy of 71.9% (kappa statistic 0.65). The performance of the SVM
method is mainly affected by the accurate setting of parameters involved in the
algorithm. The radial basis function parameter setting in SVM was an important
variable in the classification process, and SVM improved the classification of oil
palm mapping. Although the classification accuracy is still insufficient for large-
scale implementation of the technique, further refinements may provide a way forward
towards producing baseline information useful for RSPO certification.
1. Introduction
Oil palm (Elaesis guineensis) is a perennial crop which is cultivated extensively in humid
tropical lands between 10° N and 10° S. The total area under oil palm production is over
13.5 million hectares globally, the majority being large-scale plantation systems operating
as a nucleus of many smallholder producers (Butler, Koh, and Ghazoul 2009; Härdter,
Chow, and Hock 1997; Koh and Wilcove 2008). Oil palm is the most productive oil seed
in the world and is becoming an increasingly important agricultural product for tropical
countries around the world (Butler, Koh, and Ghazoul 2009). Realizing this great poten-
tial, Ghana is aiming to increase its area under oil palm by 2000 ha annually under a
Government of Ghana programme called Presidential Special Initiatives (PSI), in joint
collaboration with donor financing of oil palm production and exports (Holbech 2009).
The focus is on smallholders as a means of reducing poverty in rural farming communities
in Ghana. In 2004 the area under oil palm was approximately 304,000 ha, with
*Corresponding author. Email: nooni25593@itc.nl
© 2014 Taylor & Francis

International Journal of Remote Sensing 4779
smallholders having 88% of land area under production. Hence, there is a pressing need to
monitor the expansion of oil palm in this region to provide better estimates of smallholder
planting activities. This information is an essential input to evaluating both the success of
development policies and the impacts of these activities.
Rapid oil palm expansion into forested tropical areas occurs in many developing
countries, where the forest provides both macro- and micro-climatic conditions for the
growing of the oil palm (Laurance et al. 2010; Wicke et al. 2011). On the other hand, land
conversion to oil palm is only marginally reduced despite the widespread reports of the
ecological impacts of oil palm expansion due to lack of proper planning or lack of control
of illegal land conversion in developing countries (Koh and Ghazoul 2010). For instance,
there is evidence that oil palm expansion has led to significant deforestation in previously
forested areas (Wicke et al. 2011), species extinction (Koh and Ghazoul 2010; Koh and
Wilcove 2008), reduction in ecosystem services available to populations living around

them, and has contributed significantly to greenhouse emissions (Laurance et al. 2010). To
overcome the above challenges, certification of oil palm is viewed as an option in
addressing sustainability issues facing the global oil palm sector. The Roundtable for
Sustainable Oil Palm (RSPO) was established to develop and implement principles and
criteria that promote and reward sustainable palm oil in producing countries, through
certification (Laurance et al. 2010; Scarlat and Dallemand 2011). The palm oil certifica-
tion process by RSPO would then be used as a requirement for market access (van Dam
et al. 2008) for producing countries who meet the conditions set out in the guidelines.
However, in order to quantify these impacts, researchers need reliable and up-to-date
spatio-temporal information about these land conversions. How much of what type of
ecosystem products and services were lost by removing the previous land cover? How
much of what type of ecosystem products and services was gained from oil palm
expansion? Researchers need to quantify these parameters through a transparent assess-
ment process. The problem faced by research is that past studies have not shown which
land-cover mapping techniques and detection methods are most accurate. There is no
guidance included in RSPO guidelines on which techniques are accurate for mapping oil-
palm-related land-cover changes. A remote-sensing-based approach is viewed as a reliable
option for oil palm certification (Laurance et al. 2010), as it allows data acquisition in a
repeatable manner.
Oil palm mapping in tropical environment is challenging due to the nature of its
landscape, cost of acquiring image data, and selection of classifier.
Nonetheless, few studies have been carried out in tropical regions to map oil-palm-
related land cover using a variety of sensors. For example, Thenkabail et al. (2004) used
exponential regression with a multi-date IKONOS data to map oil palm plantations and
groves with an overall accuracy of 88–92% in the West African country of Benin.
Recently, the use of medium-spatial resolution data such as Landsat ETM+ (30 m),
ASTER images (15 m) (Jusoff and Pathan 2009; Zhu and Blumberg 2002), SPOT 5
(Tehrany, Pradhan, and Jebu 2013), ALOS PALSAR (Tan, Kanniah, and Cracknell 2013),
low-spatial resolution (i.e. 1 km MODIS) data (Tan, Kanniah, and Cracknell 2014), and a
combination of MODIS and Google Earth imagery (Cracknell et al. 2013) in tropical
regions has been shown to be useful, and data acquisition is easier and cheaper. Spectral
bands from such medium-resolution images provide high separability indices in differ-
entiating between spectrally similar land-cover classes, especially when the appropriate
band selection technique is selected. Jensen (2005) elaborated the various band selection
techniques available, and the objective of a band selection technique should minimize the
error of spectral confusion between classes of interest. Band selection techniques such as
4780 I.K. Nooni et al.
Bhattacharyya distance and Jeffreys–Matusita meet these criteria (Bruzzone, Roli, and
Serpico 1995; Bruzzone and Serpico 2000; Kusimi 2008).
When interest is focused on a single cover class, the use of parametric image
classification algorithms may be inappropriate. Parametric classifiers, such as the widely
acclaimed maximum likelihood classifier (MLC), assume that data are normally distrib-
uted, and large training samples are a prerequisite for high classification accuracy.
However, data are rarely normally distributed but are expensive to acquire and, as a
result, many classification algorithms with relatively higher classification accuracies, such
as neural networks and decision trees, have emerged for land-cover mapping (Huang,
Davis, and Townshend 2002; Foody and Mathur 2004a).
Despite this success, researchers continue to search for methods to further upgrade
classification accuracies. In this regard the support vector machine (SVM), originally
based on binary function, is included among the new ways of improving classification
accuracy in remote-sensing studies (Foody and Mathur 2004a; Huang, Davis, and
Townshend 2002; Huang et al. 2008). This is because SVM has the tendency to reduce
classification error by minimizing the probability of misclassifying field data drawn
randomly from a fixed but unknown probability distribution (Vapnik 1995, 1998). SVM
has been applied to mapping land cover and has been shown to be competitive with other
available classification methods such as neural networks, decision trees, and maximum
likelihood, with higher overall accuracy using a confusion matrix (Foody and Mathur
2004a; Huang, Davis, and Townshend 2002; Zhu and Blumberg 2002). SVM has been
applied especially in mapping cotton (Foody et al. 2006), winter wheat, and spring barley
(Foody and Mathur 2004a); mapping six classes of wheat, sugar beet, carrots, grass, and
potatoes (Foody and Mathur 2004b); and in mapping five classes of oil palm, urban, soil,
water, and other vegetation (Tehrany, Pradhan, and Jebu 2013). The SVM technique thus
appears to have potential for the mapping and estimation of areas of oil palm. It could be
especially helpful in mapping smallholder plantings, which is a subset of the whole class
occurring in a heterogeneous environment. The main objective of the study was to
identify an improved image classification method for tropical vegetation.
The study objectives are: to evaluate the SVM technique in comparison to the
conventional technique of MLC in regard to their ability to accurately map smallholder
oil palm plantings; to focus on the separability accuracy of the land-cover classes involved
using the separability statistical test method of Bhattacharyya distance; and to investigate
overall accuracy and kappa statistics, with both classifiers using the same ground truth
data to estimate oil palm planting.
To increase the accuracy of field data collection, the study used high-resolution
imagery such as World view 2 to aid in field observations and data collection in the
Ejisu–Juaben district, which has a heterogeneous landscape. The methodology considered
the age variability of oil palm planting and the complexities involved in separating other
cover types bordering the smallholder plantings.
1.1. Concepts of SVM classification

SVM classification basically takes inputs from training data and predicts for given inputs,
which out of the classes forms the input by relating the training data set to each pixel in an
image. It then operates to find a wide separation boundary between class pairs by marking
each pixel as belonging to a class, based on the inputs (Foody and Mathur 2004a;
Kavzoglu and Colkesen 2009).
SVM was first introduced as a machine learning method by Cortes and Vapnik (1995)
based on a non-probability binary function. In SVM-based classification, the known
pixels of the training set are each marked as belonging to one of two classes. The SVM
training algorithm (i.e. kernel function) then builds a model that assigns new classes into
either one class or the other. This operation is carried out in feature space, where classes
are separated by a boundary that is as wide as possible. Unseen data in the training set can
be mapped into the same space and predicted to classes based on which side of the
boundary they fall (Vapnik 1995, 1998). As a binary classifier, SVM initially created a
setback for researchers who encountered multiple class land covers despite earlier suc-
cesses in using SVM to map land cover. However, the problem was resolved through the
introduction of two methods, commonly known as the one-against-all and one-against-one
multiclass-based approaches (Burges 1998; Melgani and Bruzzone 2004). Burges (1998)
and Melgani and Bruzzone (2004) explained the principal techniques and limitations of
the two approaches. In this paper, the one-against-all approach was chosen, the reason
being that in a tropical landscape, where the land covers are heterogeneous in nature, such
an approach could provide a noble solution when adopted (Bruzzone and Serpico 2000;
Foody and Mathur 2004a; Longepe et al. 2011). A brief theoretical introduction to SVM-
based classification is presented below.
Consider the training data represented by fxi ; yi g, i ¼ 1; . . . ; r, yi 2 f1; 1g in F-
dimensional space, where xi is the observed spectral response and yi the class label for a
training case. In this instance, only an optimal hyperplane or boundary that separates the
two classes in the training dataset is determined in feature space.
A hyperplane can be defined by the equation ω:x þ b ¼ 0, where x is the point lying
on the hyperplane, ω is normal to the hyperplane, b is the bias, and jωbj is the perpendicular
distance from the hyperplane to the origin (see Figure 1). For linear separation, a separable
hyperplane can be defined for the two classes as ω:xi þ b þ1 ðyi ¼ þ1Þ and
ω :xi þ b þ1 ðyi ¼ 1Þ. The two equations can be combined as
yi ðω:xi þ bÞ 1 0: (1)
The training data points found on these hyperplanes (F1 and F2) are referred to as
support vectors and are central to the establishment of the optimal separating hyperplane
(see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Basics of classification by an SVM: (a) separable case and (b) non-separable case.
These support vectors of the two classes lie on the two hyperplanes parallel to the
optimal hyperplane and are defined by ω:xi þ b ¼ 1. The margin between these planes
is jω2j . The maximization of this margin leads to the following constrained optimization
problem under the inequality constraints of Equation (1):

1 2
min ω : (2)
2
However, in situations where the classes are not linearly separable, a slack variable,
fi gi¼1r indicates the distance of the sample from the optimal hyperplane to the class to
which it belongs. This allows a certain number of constraints to be introduced, and the
constraints then become
yðω:xi þ bÞ>1 i : (3)
The above constraints, in the case of outliers

P contained in data, can always be met by
making i very large so a penalty term, C ri¼1 i ; is added to penalize solutions for which
i are very large. The constant C controls the magnitude of the penalty that is associated
with training samples that lie on the wrong side of the decision boundary. With a low value
of C, an inappropriately large fraction of support vectors may be derived while with a large
value of C there is a danger of SVM overfitting to the training data and so having low
generation ability. With the addition of the penalty, the optimization problem becomes
" #
X
r
min ω2 þ C i : (4)
i¼1
If the approach is extended to allow nonlinear decision surfaces, the input data are, for
example, mapped into high-dimensional space through some nonlinear mapping which
has the effect of spreading the distribution of the data points in a way that facilitates the
fitting of a hyperplane. This leads to decision functions of the form
!
X
r
f ðxÞ ¼ sgn αi yi k ðx; xi Þ þ b ; (5)
i¼1
where /i ; i ¼ 1; . . . ; r are Lagrange multipliers and k ðx; xi Þ is a kernel function. The

magnitude of /i is determined by the penalty parameter (C) and lies on a scale of 0–C.
The kernel used must meet Mercer’s (Vapnik 1995). An alternative kernel function is the
radial basis function, which meets the condition

k ðx; xi Þ ¼ exp x xi 2 = 2γ2 ; (6)
where γ2 is specified a priori by the user. The accuracy produced by the SVM classifier is
influenced by the magnitude of the setting penalty parameter (C) and kernel parameter (γ),
which can achieved through trials (cross-validation).
From the perspective of allocations associated with the oil palm class in the confusion
matrix, the statistical significance of difference between classification accuracies is
evaluated using chi-square statistics and confidence limit. A chi-square was carried out to
test the strength between the correctly and wrongly classified data in the confusion matrix
table.
Testing of significance of correlation coefficient is based on n 1 degrees of freedom
and the level of confidence set at 0.05; the letter n denotes the number of classes used in
the study. The chi-square formula used is
X ðO E Þ2
χ2 ¼ ; (7)
E
where observed frequency (O) refers to the classified totals found in the confusion matrix,
and the expected frequency (E) refers to the correctly classified points.
From the confusion matrix, the confidence interval (CI) is determined for the accura-
cies based on correctly classified sites and the reference and classified sample size. The
formula for estimating the CI is as follows:
The estimate for one proportion at 95% confidence level:
CL95% ¼ p Z σ p ; (8)
where p is the proportion in the sample, Z depends on the level of confidence desired
(1.96 at 95%), and σ, the standard error of a proportion, is equal to
xþ2
½ p ¼ : (9)
N þ4
The term x is the number of correctly classified sample sites and N is the total number
classified samples in the confusion matrix:
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
p ð 1 pÞ
σp ¼ : (10)
N þ4
2. Materials and methods

2.1. Description of the study area
The Ejisu–Juaben district is located (Figure 2) between longitude 1° 15ʹ W–1° 45ʹ W and
latitude 6° 15ʹ N–7° 00ʹ N. The district stretches over an area of about 637.2 km2. It has a
tropical and wet semi-equatorial climate with annual average temperatures ranging from
20°C in August to 32°C in March. The mean annual rainfall is 1200mm, mainly from
March to July, with high relative humidity during this period.
The district falls within the forest-dissected plateau terrain region of Ghana. The
terrain is flat to undulating, with altitude ranging between 230 and 300 m above sea
level. Dominant soil types are derived from pre-Cambrian rock formations such as
Birrimian, Tarkwaian, and superficial deposits, which offer vast opportunities for the
cultivation of traditional and non-traditional cash crops (Anornu, Kortatsi, and Saeed
2009). The main agronomical crops grown in the area are maize, cocoyam, plantain,
cassava, citrus, cocoa, and oil palm. The crop calendar follows the rainfall pattern, with
the main cropping season being from March to July while the minor season is from
September to November (Anornu, Kortatsi, and Saeed 2009).
Figure 2. The study area in the Ashanti region of Ghana shown as a green square.
The study area was chosen based on the following parameters. The district cultivates
many perennial and long-season crops such as cocoa and oil palm that influence the land
cover patterns for most of the year in cultivated areas, while a considerable area remains
forested. The government of Ghana and World Bank initiatives were implemented in
1997 and 2004, respectively, to promote the development of smallholder oil planting.
The district has experienced land-cover changes (in the vicinity of forest reserves) in
relation to fauna and flora biodiversity loss (Gyasi et al. 1995) and the conversion of
other crops to oil palm, which may pose a threat to food security (Anornu, Kortatsi, and
Saeed 2009).
2.2. Data processing and field data collection

Landsat ETM+ of path and row 194 and 55 (30 m resolution), respectively, acquired on 4
February 2010 was used. The image was geometrically rectified based on control points
taken from topographic maps at 1:25,000 scale using Universal Transverse Mercator and
WGS 1984 datum map projection. The nearest-neighbour resampling technique obtained
a root mean squared error (RMSE) of 0.27 less than 0.5 pixels. A subset of the study area
was clipped using the district boundary for the classification in order to optimize effort
and time for the fieldwork. The image was divided into 25 classes (using the ISODATA
method) and later merged into five classes – forest, crops, shrub, built-up, and bare soil –
using previously collected data. The classified map used was a preliminary land-cover
map, together with a high-resolution WorldView-2 image acquired on 4 January 2011 for
the purpose of field data collection.
Field data were collected during the dry season using the stratified random sampling
method (Husch, Beers, and Kershaw 2003). Field observations gave a better
Table 1. Ground truth data collected in part of Ejisu-Juabeng district for

training and testing of Landsat ETM + imagery.
Land cover type Training data Testing data Total
Forest 42 30 72
Oil palm 43 32 75
Crops 36 32 68
Shrub 32 28 60
Built-up/bare 39 29 68
understanding of the structure of the vegetation types found in the study area mainly
regarding smallholder oil palm plantings. Other vegetation types such as raffia palm,
mixed farming, or intercropping were observed. During the fieldwork each land cover was
registered with a GPS device to allow integration with spatial data in geographic informa-
tion systems (GISs) and image processing systems (Jensen 1996).
In the field, data of crop fields were categorized and registered separately as oil palm
or other crops. Ground truth data for oil palm were collected mainly from both small-
holder and larger plantations that had been in existence for at least 5 years.
A total of 343 training samples were collected (Table 1). The field data were randomly
separated into two sets (i.e. 60% were used for training and the remaining points used as
test data for accuracy assessment). Five land-cover classes were identified: forest, shrub,
other crops, oil palm, and built-up/bare. In order to ensure reliability, the same data set
was used for all experiments with the two classifiers.
2.3. Image classification procedure

Landsat ETM+ has six non-thermal wavebands, and three bands identified as providing
the maximum level of interclass separability were selected for the analyses. SVM is a
widely known classifier capable of dealing with high-dimensional data sets (Longepe
et al. 2011), unlike MLC, which poses a major computational challenge (Fukunaga
1990; Jain, Duin, and Mao 2000). A methodology of using a three-band image compo-
site was implemented using a selection criterion (Richards 1993). Spectral separability
of classes was verified using Bhattacharyya statistic distance in Multi-Spec software
(Bruzzone and Serpico 2000). An optimum weighted factor value of 10 was assigned
and 20 iterations were performed for all possible band combinations. Spectral separ-
ability is rated as either good (**), fair (*), or poor (·) (Jensen 1996). The highest value
is the maximum Bhattacharyya weighted interclass distance value that is considered to
have good spectral separability (Zhang, Wenling, and Hui 2009), the second highest
value is considered fair, and the remainder of the values that follow are considered as
poor. The three optimum bands or band combinations that correspond to the maximum
mean variance were selected for classification (Foody and Mathur 2004a; Zhang,
Wenling, and Hui 2009). Spectral separability was assessed on a per-band basis and
on a per-three-band combination basis.
The multiclass SVM approach with an RBF kernel was used to classify the data
(Huang, Davis, and Townshend 2002; Foody et al. 2006; Foody and Mathur 2004a). The
optimum ETM + band data were extracted and the training sets were used to derive a
series of SVM classification in R environment for statistical computing. The parameter
pair (C, γ) from Equation (4) and values from Equation (6) were randomly selected. The
values of the SVM parameters, C and γ, were determined using a tenfold cross-validation
approach (Foody et al. 2006). Since the accuracy may vary with the γ parameter, the γ
values were randomly selected over the range 1–10 and defined for each analysis with C
fixed at 1. The parameter pair (C = 1, γ) values were tried, and the performance was re-
evaluated until all selected parameter pairs (C, γ) had been evaluated. For the training sets
used, the results for the most accurate classification of the testing set were derived. The γ
parameter increases the accuracy of classifying the test data from the range of 1.0–3.0.
Little or no trend of improvement was observed when the kernel function increased
beyond 7.0. Values of γ = 3 and C = 1 were selected for the classification. The trials
were carried out until an optimal parameter setting for γ was achieved with C = 1.
In addition to the multiclass SVM approach to classification, MLC was also used for
the purposes of comparison. The MLC was implemented in ERDAS IMAGINE version
10 software. Signatures were evaluated by examining the signature alarm and signature
mean plot in ERDAS IMAGINE version 10. The three optimum band combinations
selected from the spectral separability test were used in the classification of the image.
Conventional accuracy assessment showing an error matrix (Congalton 1991) was
implemented with overall accuracies, and kappa coefficients were also used (Congalton
1991; Huang et al. 2008). Classification accuracy was expressed in terms of percentage of
testing cases correctly allocated by the classification, while the kappa coefficient allowed for a
statistical testing of significant difference between correctly classified proportions (Congalton
1991). Chi-test statistics were performed for the algorithm with the highest overall accuracy
to determine the strength between correctly and wrongly classified data in the confusion
matrix table. Testing for significant difference between misclassified proportions was based
on the null hypothesis that no significant difference exists between misclassified proportions
among classes. The alternative hypothesis is that misclassified proportion differs between
classes. When the calculated chi-square value is equal to or greater than the table value, the
null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis accepted.
3. Results
3.1. Spectral separability analysis
Tables 2 and 3 present the Bhattacharyya distance, which is the statistical measure of
spectral separability between the various cover classes. Table 2 shows the performance of
Table 2. Bhattacharyya separability based on per-band basis for six non-thermal bands of Landsat
ETM+.
Weighted interclass distance measures (using weighting factor of 10)
Individual band F–O F–C F–S F–B O–C O–S O–B C–S C–B S–B
Band 3 1.95* 10 0.62 19.5 15.9** 1.12* 24.2** 1.36 4.5 6.18
Band 2 0.38 5.36 0.51 15.2 6.08 0.64 7.86 1.62 2.36 7.02
Band 5 0.41 17.3 1.3 10 11.6* 0.85 16* 0.71 0.39 0.96
Band 7 0.05 6.31 1.04 12.5 6.7 1.09 12.9 0.48 1.97 2.51
Band 4 7.59** 13.8 0.76 1.5 2.81 1.24** 8.5 0.92 7.43 0.59
Band 1 0.61 1.68 0.03 7.64 3.26 0.48 10.9 1.24 1.41 6.04
Notes: F, forest; O, oil palm; S, shrub; C, other crops; B, built-up/bare. Bold values signify individual band and
band combinations that showed high separability with the various classes’s pairs. **Good separability and *fair
separability.
Table 3. Bhattacharyya statistical distance based on three-band combinations on six non-thermal

bands of ETM+.
Weighted interclass distance measures (using weighting factor of 10)
Bands F–O F–C F–S F–B O–C O–S O–B C–S C–B S–B
3, 4, 5 9.4* 27.8** 17.3** 43.4** 24.1** 2.2* 54.0** 9.4 26.1** 13.3**
3, 4, 7 9.1 25.1 13.5 36.1 21.4 2.4** 47.6 11.1** 23.5* 11.8*
2, 3, 4 11.7** 27.7* 4.9 37.1* 19.6 2.1 51.3* 9.6 22.7 8.8
1, 3, 4 9.2 25.1 4.5 33.1 22.4* 2.0 46.7 10.0* 25.1 8.8
Notes: Bold values signify individual band and band combinations that showed high separability with the various
class pairs. **Good separability and *fair separability.
individual bands in separating cover pairs. Generally, bands 1, 2, and 7 produced the
lowest spectral separability in separating oil palm from the other cover types. The results
show the respective bands to be less useful in separating oil palm from the other classes.
The most accurate individual bands that displayed the highest spectral separability in
separating oil palm from other cover types are bands 3, 4, and 5 (Table 2). Band 3 showed
maximum interclass mean distance value in spectral separability between oil palm and
other crops, between oil palm and built-up/bare, and observed fair separability between oil
palm versus forest and oil palm versus shrub. Band 4 offered the best spectral separation
between oil palm versus forest and oil palm versus shrub but showed poor separability for
oil palm versus other crops and oil palm versus built-up. Band 5 offered fair spectral
separability for separating oil palm versus crops and oil palm versus built-up/bare but
showed poor separability between oil palm versus forest and oil palm versus shrub.
Table 3 summarizes three optimum band combinations that provided optimal inter-
class separation using Bhattacharyya distance. Accuracy in interclass separation using
Bhattacharyya distance varied remarkably among the various band combinations and was
generally lower in band combinations 1, 3, and 4 and 2, 3, and 4. Band combination 3, 4,
and 7 showed good spectral separability for oil palm versus shrub and fair spectral
separability for oil palm versus other agricultural crops and oil palm versus other
agricultural crops. Poor separability was observed between oil palm versus forest and
oil palm versus built-up/bare. Band combination 3, 4, and 5 showed good spectral
separability for oil palm versus other crops and oil palm versus built-up/bare. Spectral
separability between oil palm versus shrub and oil palm versus forest was fairly estab-
lished. This band combination appeared to be more important in separating oil palm from
all other classes. The satellite image was therefore classified using band combinations 3,
4, and 5 as this provided maximum separability for all class pairs.
3.2. Accuracy assessment and comparison

The classified Landsat ETM+ image included the cover types forest, oil palm, shrub, other
agricultural crops, and built-up/bare. Figures 3 and 4 show the spatial distribution of the
cover types in the Ejisu–Juaben district based on MLC and SVM, respectively, while
Table 4 shows the error matrix results for SVM and MLC, respectively. Table 5 shows the
accurate assessment of SVM classification. The SVM method produced higher user’s and
producer’s accuracies compared with MLC for all individual classes. Oil palm was
mapped using SVM at high user and producer’s accuracies of 85.7% and 100%,
669,000 670,000 671,000 672,000 673,000 674,000 675,000 676,000 677,000

745,000 746,000 747,000 748,000 749,000 750,000 751,000
744,000 745,000 746,000 747,000 748,000 749,000 750,000 751,000

Legend
Forest
Built-up/bare
Oil Palm
Shrub
Other Crops
Cloud
0 0.5 1 2 3 4
669,000 670,000 671,000 672,000 673,000 674,000 675,000 676,000 677,000 km
Figure 3. Maximum likelihood classified land-cover map of Ejisu–Juabeng district (2010).
669,000 670,000 671,000 672,000 673,000 674,000 675,000 676,000 677,000

751,000
751,000
750,000
750,000
749,000
749,000
748,000
748,000
747,000
747,000
Legend
746,000
746,000
Forest
Built-up/bare
Oil Palm
745,000
745,000
Shrub
Other Crops
Cloud
744,000
0 0.5 1 2 3 4
669,000 670,000 671,000 672,000 673,000 674,000 675,000 676,000 677,000 km
Figure 4. Support vector machine classified land-cover map of Ejisu–Juabeng district (2010).
respectively, compared with MLC. The overall accuracy achieved with SVM was 78.3%.
Error of commission from Table 4 indicates that differentiation between oil palm from
other cover types can be further improved, and this is consistent with Kusimi (2008) who
found separating shrubs from farmland difficult. In MLC classification, the overall
accuracy achieved was 71.7% and the overall kappa coefficient showed a similar trend.
A kappa coefficient of 0.73 and 0.65 was recorded for SVM and MLC, respectively. In
Table 4. Error matrix for SVM and MLC classification.
Predicted class (SVM) Predicted class (MLC)
EC EC
Actual class F O C S B ∑ (%) F O C S B ∑ (%)
Forest (F) 26 0 1 0 0 27 3.7 25 1 1 0 0 27 7.7

Oil palm (O) 1 32 3 2 0 38 15.8 1 30 2 1 1 35 14.3
Crops (C) 3 0 27 19 0 49 44.9 1 0 15 12 1 29 48.3
Shrub (S) 0 0 0 4 0 4 0 3 1 10 12 1 27 55.6
Built-up (B) 0 0 1 3 30 34 13.3 0 0 4 3 27 34 25.9
∑ 30 32 32 28 30 152 30 32 32 28 30 152
EO (%) 13.3 0 15.6 14.3 0 16.7 6.26 53.1 40.0 10.0
Notes: For SVM, the user’s and producer’s accuracies for oil palm classification are 85.71% and 100%,
respectively; the overall accuracy is 78.29% and kappa statistic 0.73. For MLC, the user’s and producer’s
accuracies for oil palm classification are 84.21% and 93.75%, respectively; the overall accuracy is 71.71% and
kappa statistic 0.65. EC and EO denote error of commission and error of omission, respectively.
Table 5. Accuracy assessment for SVM classification.
Reference Classified Number Producer’s accuracy User’s accuracy

Land cover class total total correct (%) (%)
Forest 30 27 26 86.67 96.30

Oil palm 32 38 32 100 84.21
Other crops 32 49 27 84.38 55.10
Shrub 28 4 4 14.29 100
Built-up/bare 30 34 30 100 88.24
Cloud 0 0 0 – –
Total 152 152 119
Overall 78.29
accuracy (%)
Overall kappa 0.73
general, most of the areas shown in purple in Figure 3 and yellow in Figure 4 in the
central and southeastern areas are covered by young oil palms, which were classified as
shrubs and crops by MLC and SVM, respectively. Similar misclassification of land-cover
classes was also found in Tan, Kanniah, and Cracknell (2014), where oil palms were
wrongly classified as forest. This challenge could be resolved by using a more detailed
land-cover classification (Tan, Kanniah, and Cracknell 2014) in the SVM algorithm where
classification is done at sub-pixel level.
The chi-square statistical test of significant difference between misclassified propor-
tions showed that the calculated chi-square value of 3.51 was less than the tabulated value
of 9.49 at four degrees of freedom and P < 0.05. This means that, for individual classes,
the misclassified proportion did not differ significantly but both overall and kappa
statistics show that SVM produced higher accuracy compared with MLC. The overall
accuracy of SVM was within CI of 0.71–0.84. In the case of oil palm cover, the
producer’s and user’s accuracies had a standard error of 0.04 and 0.06, respectively.
Producer’s accuracy of oil palm cover was within the CI of 0.86–1.0, and user’s accuracy
of oil palm class was within the CI of 0.68–0.92.
4. Discussion
There is no guidance in RSPO guidelines as to which technique is most accurate for
mapping oil palm-related land-cover changes (Laurance et al. 2010). To help fill this gap,
this study compared SVM and MLC in classifying oil palm in a tropical heterogeneous
landscape using Landsat ETM+ imagery.
Two results stood out from this study. First, Landsat ETM+ can differentiate oil palm
from other classes using Bhattacharyya distance. This tool is useful when vegetation has
closely associated cover types, as is the case in the study area (Kusimi 2008; Lu,
Batistella, et al. 2004; Lu, Mausel, et al. 2004). The statistical test reveals and highlights
the importance of the red (band 3), near-infrared (band 4), and mid-infrared (band 5)
spectrum in separating oil palm from other cover types.
The red region of the electromagnetic spectrum (band 3) is linked to the strong
chlorophyll absorption region and strong reflectance of vegetation, bare soils, and urban
areas (Jensen 1996 2005). The unique reflectance of oil palm in this wavelength region
can also be linked to sunlight and its mineral composition (i.e. iron, magnesium, nitrogen,
purposely introduced into oil palm cultivation to boost yield), which is necessary for
chlorophyll production and canopy greenness (Lu 2005; McMorrow 2001; Zheng et al.
2004). This explains the results where band 3 was spectrally useful in separating oil palm
from the other classes found in the study area.
In the infrared wavelength regions, the presence of water causes radiation absorption
and vegetation shows high reflectance due to water absorption and strong reflectance by
the leaves (Dehnavi, Srikhani, and Nagaraju 2010; Ibrahim, Zainal, and Khalid 2000;
Munyati 2000). Oil palm is a monocytyledonous perennial crop with minimal water
deficits compared with the dicotyledonous nature of forest, shrub, and other crops
(Wahid, Abdullah, and Henson 2005). Although band 4 contributed to the separability
of oil palm from forest species, many shrubs, and other crops, this cannot explain the poor
separability between oil palm and other crops. This poor separability could be due to
intercropping in young oil palm plots in the field (McMorrow 2001; Thenkabail et al.
2004). Band 5 showed higher spectral separability in separating oil palm from the rest of
the classes as compared with band 7. These assessments may be linked to the claims by
Corley, Hardon, and Tan (1971) and Suresh and Nagamani (2006), who found that the
photosynthetic activity of monocotyledonous oil palm was higher than that of dicotyle-
donous plants (forest, shrubs, and other crops). Band 4 (near-infrared) and band 5 (mid-
infrared) are known to be very sensitive to moisture and are useful for monitoring
vegetation and soil moisture in comparison with band 7 (Ibrahim, Zainal, and Khalid
2000; Munyati 2000). Spectral separability increased markedly in regard to separating oil
palm from the other classes when bands 3, 4, and 5 were combined and analysed. Band
combination 3, 4, and 5 for image classification provided the most accurate results in oil
palm mapping, and this same band combination also performed well in the vegetation
mapping studies of Liberti et al. (2009) and Wahid (1998).
The second notable result was that the overall accuracy achieved by SVM was higher than
that for MLC, and is in agreement with results from other tropical vegetation mapping studies
(Zaw Htun, Mizoue, and Yoshida 2011; Yang et al. 2001). Also, the kappa statistics show that
the SVM approach reduced classification error compared with MLC. The statistical testing of
significance of classification accuracies shows the sensitivity of the SVM method in mapping
oil palm plantations in a heterogeneous environment from the perspective of overall accuracy,
user’s, and producer’s accuracies. SVM is designed to locate optimal support vectors in the
training set, and the optimum performance of this method is made possible by the proper
setting of parameters involved in the algorithm (Foody et al. 2006; Vapnik 1995). Thus,
increasing the kernel function beyond the optimum value for this study further minimizes the
training error. This is desirable, but occurs at a cost as the number of support vectors in the
training data set declines, lowering the classification accuracy. Here, the emphasis on the
nature of the training set (i.e. how data are collected) is less important than the number of
observations in the training set used in SVM (Foody and Mathur, 2004b; Foody et al. 2006).
When a particular vegetation type in the training set is poorly collected, the number of correct
support vectors for classification is affected (Vapnik 1995), reducing classification accuracy.
The significance of the support vectors is intended to minimize training error (Huang, Davis,
and Townshend 2002) and its success comes at a cost when class separability is poor. The cost
parameter controls the penalty of wrongly placed pixels or support vectors that lie on the other
side, by using only pixels that belong to the correct class during training (Foody et al. 2006;
Foody and Mathur 2004a, 2004b). Comparing the two classification methods, it is apparent
that classification by SVM algorithm is found to be most sensitive to training set size by
ignoring all wrongly collected classes found in the training set.
The SVM approach can provide more reliable oil palm mapping than the conventional
MLC method, and such improvements in accuracy are important when we want to study
the impacts of oil palm expansion. Correct baseline information on land cover also affects
the quality of studies on deforestation, flora and fauna, and biodiversity, etc. The SVM
approach has therefore demonstrated its potential to identify and map the distribution of
oil palm in a heterogeneous landscape.
5. Conclusions and future study

This paper presents the comparison of SVM and MLC classification in classifying oil
palm plantations with Landsat ETM+. The spectral separability test using Bhattacharyya
distance shows that Landsat EMT+ image band combination 3, 4, and 5 provides optimal
separability between oil palm from forest, other crops, shrubs, and built-up/bare areas.
Although comparative analyses with other separability indices were not performed,
Bhattacharyya distance identifies all training pixels satisfactorily, with each class showing
relatively good interclass separability from oil palm.
SVM and MLC varied in their ability to map and quantify oil palm. SVM classifier maps
oil palm with significantly higher overall, producer, and user accuracies compared with
MLC. An overall classification accuracy of 78.3% and kappa statistic of 0.73 is achieved by
SVM. By comparing producer’s and user’s accuracies derived from both classifications, the
highest producer’s and user’s accuracies were derived from the SVM classifier. The produ-
cer’s and user’s accuracies for oil palm classification are 100% and 85.71%, respectively,
and higher than the recommended accuracy assessment of 85%. The producer’s accuracy
comparison proves that SVM can provide very high accuracy in differentiating oil palm from
other cover types. A lower overall accuracy of 71.7% and kappa statistic of 0.65 were
achieved by MLC, while the producer’s (93.75%) and user’s (84.21%) accuracies were
shown to be lower compared with SVM. The main limitation shown by both classifiers is
that they do not meet the commonly acceptable overall accuracy assessment of 85%
prescribed in the literature. However, the results obtained from SVM and MLC for this
study are consistent and satisfactory with past studies in land cover mapping.
This paper has demonstrated that SVM can offer a viable option in the future for
mapping oil palm. The study noted that the far-reaching extent of oil palm over the region
provides the opportunity to explore SVM algorithms over a much wider area. At this
stage, the results presented in this study still do not allow us to produce baseline
information about oil palm areas with sufficient accuracy. However, the SVM approach –
including prior knowledge such as the effect of topography (i.e. altitude, elevation, aspect,
etc.) – may further improve classification results. This may ultimately help organizations
such as RSPO gain access to good-quality baseline information for impact assessments
related to oil palm expansion.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Mr Felix Fynn, (Manager) and to Mr Ofori and Mr Kyei (Extension
officers) of Juaben Oil Mills Limited, Ejisu–Juaben district, for granting access to the oil palm
plantations. Many thanks also to Dr Valentyn Tolpenkin of ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands, for his
expert guidance on SVM principles and for granting access to the SVM code used in this work; and
to LIBSVM for free open access to SVM tutorials.
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Support vector machine to map oil palm in a heterogeneous

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Wilcove 2008), reduction in ecosystem services available to populations living around

1.1. Concepts of SVM classification

constraints then become

yðω:xi þ bÞ>1 i : (3)

The above constraints, in the case of outliers

where /i ; i ¼ 1; . . . ; r are Lagrange multipliers and k ðx; xi Þ is a kernel function. The

2. Materials and methods

2.2. Data processing and field data collection

Table 1. Ground truth data collected in part of Ejisu-Juabeng district for

Land cover type Training data Testing data Total

2.3. Image classification procedure

Weighted interclass distance measures (using weighting factor of 10)

Table 3. Bhattacharyya statistical distance based on three-band combinations on six non-thermal

Weighted interclass distance measures (using weighting factor of 10)

3.2. Accuracy assessment and comparison

669,000 670,000 671,000 672,000 673,000 674,000 675,000 676,000 677,000

744,000 745,000 746,000 747,000 748,000 749,000 750,000 751,000

Figure 3. Maximum likelihood classified land-cover map of Ejisu–Juabeng district (2010).

669,000 670,000 671,000 672,000 673,000 674,000 675,000 676,000 677,000

Table 4. Error matrix for SVM and MLC classification.

Predicted class (SVM) Predicted class (MLC)

Forest (F) 26 0 1 0 0 27 3.7 25 1 1 0 0 27 7.7

Table 5. Accuracy assessment for SVM classification.

Reference Classified Number Producer’s accuracy User’s accuracy

Forest 30 27 26 86.67 96.30

5. Conclusions and future study

Southern Ghana.” Global Environmental Change 5 (4): 355–366. doi:10.1016/0959-3780(95)

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