Detecting Peatland Drains with Object Based Image Analysis

The School of History and Geography are delighted to announce the publication Detecting Peatland Drains with Object Based Image Analysis by our colleague Dr John Connolly.

Peatlands play an important role in the global carbon cycle.  They provide vital ecosystem services.  Drainage disturbs peatland ecosystem services.  Mapping drains is difficult and expensive and their spatial extent is, in many cases, unkown.  An object based image analysis (OBIA) was performed on a very high resolution satellite image (Geoeye-1) to extract information about drain location and extent on a blanket peatland in Ireland.  Two accuracy assessment methods:  Error matrix and the completeness, correctness and quality (CCQ) were used to assess the extracted data across the peatland and at several sub sites.  The cost of the OBIA method was compared with manual digitisation and field survey.  The drain maps were also used to assess the costs relating to blocking drains vs. a business-as-usual scenario and estimating the impact of each on carbon fluxes at the study site.

The publication is available here.