Optimizing SVM for argan tree classification using Sentinel-2 data: A case study in the Sous-Massa Region, Morocco

The development of efficient classifiers for land cover remains challenging due to the presence of hyperparameters in the model. Conventional approaches rely on manual tuning, which is both time-consuming and impractical, often leading to suboptimal results. This study aimed to optimize the hyperparameters of the Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm using the grid search method to map the distribution of the Argan forest in the Souss-Massa region of Morocco from Sentinel-2 satellite image. To achieve this, we examined the C parameter for the linear function, as well as the C and gamma parameters for the radial RBF and sigmoid functions. Similarly, we explored the C, gamma, and degree parameters for the polynomial function chosen using the grid search method. These parameters are compared with the default hyperparameters of each SVM function. The results are validated using the cross-validation method and by the following scores: accuracy, precision, recall, F1 score, and Cohen’s Kappa. The experiments were conducted using the Earth Engine Python API in Google Colab (Google Collaboratory). In addition, experimental results indicate that the hyperparameters selected by grid search yield higher scores than the default hyperparameters. The best results were achieved using the hyperparameters of the polynomial base kernel, specifically with C = 10, degree = 2, and gamma = 10. Accuracy = 96.61%.