A new accuracy evaluation method for water body extraction

ABSTRACT

This paper employs the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Automated Water Extraction Index (AWEI), Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI) and Near-Infrared (NIR) threshold methods to extract the boundaries of Hongjiannao Lake, Zasak reservoir and Changjiagou reservoir. The real boundary of the water bodies was obtained by visual interpretation from high-resolution imagery. The Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) is further used to calculate the net shoreline movement (NSM) between the real lake boundary and the lake boundary extracted by the NDWI, AWEI, MNDWI and NIR threshold methods. We quantitatively evaluated the accuracy of each water body extraction method by NSM, which was competed with kappa coefficient (κ) and edge detection. The results showed that the average of the |NSM| of the NDWI, MNDWI, AWEI and NIR threshold methods are 12.77 m, 16.76 m, 28.65 m and 31.43 m, respectively. The κ is 0.9869, 0.9855, 0.9747 and 0.9736, respectively and the correct extracted (T) ratios for the edge detection are 84.06%, 82.68%, 56.8% and 53.52%, respectively. The mean value of |NSM| for NDWI is the smallest, while κ and T are the highest. It indicates that the accuracy of NDWI is the highest in Hongjiannao lake. The smaller the |NSM| is, the larger κ and the higher T are. This shows that the |NSM| is consistent with the commonly used accuracy verification method such as κ and edge detection. The results of water extraction from the other two reservoirs also support this conclusion. Therefore, the accuracy verification of NSM can reflect the spatial position information and has reliability. It provides a new approach in verifying the accuracy of water body extraction methods. The optimum water extraction index for different study areas is different. The NIR band threshold method and AWEI can accurately extract water boundaries with a small amount of aquatic vegetation. However, NDWI and MNDWI are more suitable for extracting water bodies located in complex terrains.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41401496), Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi (2020JM-514) and Xi’an University of Science and Technology (2019YQ3-04)