Utilizing multitemporal indices and spectral bands of Sentinel-2 to enhance land use and land cover classification with random forest and support vector machine

Multitemporal imagery offers a critical advantage by capturing seasonal variations, which are essential for differentiating between land use and land cover (LULC) types. While these types may appear similar when examined at one specific time, they exhibit distinct phenological patterns across different seasons. This temporal depth is crucial for enhancing model accuracy, particularly in heterogeneous landscapes where LULC transitions are frequent and complex. This paper made use of spectral bands and indices of Sentinel-2 from April to September 2020 for LULC classification using two advanced machine learning models: Random forest (RF) and support vector machine (SVM). The spectral indices include the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), normalized difference built-up index (NDBI), and modified normalized water index (MNDWI). The dataset was divided into four temporal feature sets: April-May, June-July, August-September, and the entire period from April-September. For each two-month period, the median values of the spectral bands and indices were used. Both models were evaluated based on overall accuracy, F1-score, Kappa coefficient, precision, and recall. Results indicate that incorporating multitemporal features enhanced the performance of the chosen models, with overall accuracy increasing from 82.4% to 94.03% for RF and from 75.4% to 93.54% for SVM. Additionally, the RF algorithm demonstrated higher accuracy than the SVM model across various time periods, with notable improvements in other performance metrics. These improvements also underscore the ability of the models to leverage the rich multitemporal data provided by Sentinel-2 for accurate LULC classification. This study highlights the importance of incorporating the dynamics of features in remote sensing applications to enhance the precision and reliability of LULC classification.