WSSGCN: Hyperspectral Forest Image Classification via Watershed Superpixel Segmentation and Sparse Graph Convolutional Networks

Hyperspectral image classification is crucial in remote sensing but faces challenges in forest ecosystem studies due to high-dimensional data, spectral variability, and spatial heterogeneity. Watershed Superpixel Segmentation and Sparse Graph Convolutional Networks (WSSGCN), a novel framework designed for efficient forest image classification, is introduced in this paper. Watershed superpixel segmentation is first used by the method to divide hyperspectral images into semantically consistent regions, reducing computational complexity while preserving terrain boundary information. On this basis, a dual-branch model is designed: a local branch with multi-scale convolutional neural networks (CNN) extracts spatial–spectral features, while a global branch constructs superpixel graphs and uses GCNs to model the global context. To enhance efficiency, a sparse tensor-based storage method is proposed for the adjacency matrix, reducing complexity from quadratic to linear. Additionally, an attention-based adaptive fusion strategy dynamically balances local and global features. Experiments on multiple datasets show that WSSGCN outperforms mainstream methods in overall accuracy (OA), average accuracy (AA), and Kappa coefficient. Notably, it achieves a 3.5% OA improvement and a 0.04 Kappa coefficient increase compared to SPEFORMER on the WHU-Hi-HongHu dataset. Practicality in resource-limited scenarios is ensured by sparse graph modeling. This work offers an efficient solution for forest monitoring, supporting applications like biodiversity assessment and deforestation tracking, and advances remote sensing-based forest ecosystem analysis. The proposed approach shows strong potential for real-world ecological conservation and forest management.