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International Journal of Remote Sensing Applications Volume 4 Issue 1, March 2014

doi: 10.14355/ijrsa.2014.0401.06

OIF Based Indeces Oriented Ecological

Classification Using LANDSAT TM Digital
Data A Case Study on Beluchary and
Dhulibasan Island Groups, Sunderban, West
Bengal, India
*Ratnadeep Ray*1, Ashis Kr Paul2, Balen Basu3
Department of Remote sensing and GIS, 2Department of Geography and Environmental Management,
1,2Vidyasagar University,
3Department of Oceanography, Jadabpur University
1,2Midnapore (West), 3Kolkata, West Bengal, India
1

*1

ratnadiprsgis@gmail.com; 2akpaul_geo2007@yahoo.co.in; 3balenbasu@gmail.com

Abstract
The classification of vegetation from remotely sensed data
has long attracted the attention of remote sensing
community as the results are fundamental sources for many
environmental applications. There are different approaches
and techniquesto improve the classification accuracy.
However, different uncertainty or errors may be introduced
into classification due to many factors like complexity in the
landscapes under investigation, selected remotely sensed
data, image processing approaches, the availability of
reference data etc. So much efforts should be devoted to
identify these major factors in the image classification
processes and then to improve them. In the present study,
different vegetation indices (VIs) have been adopted for the
betterment of vegetation classification accuracy. The analysis
of correlation and standard deviation of each VI was used to
identify the best combination for the separability analysis.
The selection of the best combination was done using
Optimum Index Factor technique based on the total variance
within bands and correlation coefficient between bands. The
OIF technique was applied to all the calculated seven VIs. A
number of twenty one colour combinations were produced
and analyzed using OIF. The combination having the
highest OIF value has been selected for the classification in
which a distinct spectral dissimilarity has been observed,
which is very helpful for information extraction. Finally
overcoming the spectral self similarity, after classification
five ecological classes has been got from the Beluchari and
Dhulibasan islands. Finally the technique of OIF has been
successful in conclusively deriving the five ecological classes
in Beluchari and Dhulibasan Islands by overcoming the
spectral self similarly.
Keywords
Optimum Index Factor (OIF); Vegetation Indices; LANDSAT TM;

56

Image Classification

Introduction
Landsat TM imagery is the most common data source
for land-cover classification, and much previous
research has explored methods to improve
classification performance, including the use of
advanced classification options such as neural
network, extraction and classification of homogeneous
objects (ECHO), object oriented classifiers, decision
tree classifier, and subpixel-based methods (Lu et al.
2004a, Lu and Weng 2007; Blaschke 2010). However,
the role of vegetation indices and textural images in
improving land-cover classification performance is
still poorly understood, in particular in moist tropical
vegetated regions such as the Sundarban mangrove
forest areas. Therefore,
a mangrove dominated
Beluchari and Dhulibasan islands group of the
Sundarban was selected in this present study.
About the Study Area
In this present study, mangrove dominated
Dhulibasan and Beluchary island groups have been
selected for the application. These are the part of
Buffer zone of the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (SBR)
located at the Thakuran and Matla estuarine section.
The co-ordinate location of these island groups is
21045 N to 21050 N and 88031 E to 88045 E. Both of
overlapping and non overlapping nature of
mangroves are noticeable over here. The Sonneratia sp.
maintains a unique identity of its own by its

International Journal of Remote Sensing Applications Volume 4 Issue 1, March 2014

appearance in the lowest intertidal zone and it exhibits

a distinct non-overlapping character from the major
cluster of other mangroves. Species diversity occurs in
different parts of the islands, Excoecaria- AvicenniaPhoenix combination in the upper section of the island,
Avicennia Aegialitis- Rhizophora in the middle section
and Avicennia- Ceriops- Rhizophora combination in the
lower section of the islands.

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OIF = Max (

in=1 (i )
)
nj =1 r ( j )

Where, OIF is the optimum index factor. (i) is the

standard deviation of k band. r (j) is the correlation
matrix value.
The combinations having the highest OIF value have
been selected to generate signature set for the
classification (table: 4). But in spite of this signature
mixing defects the feature extraction accuracy though
visually it is fantastic. So to get the distinction between
the features a ratio has been calculated between NDVI
and TC2 and from this ratio image 5 masks have been
picked up for respective 5 ecological classes. Finally
these masks are used for signature generation during
the classification.
TABLE 1 VEGETATION INDICES

VIs
PVI1

Formula
{(b*NIR)-RED+a}/sqrt{(b*b)+1}
0.304TM1 + 0.279TM2 + 0.474TM3 +
0.559TM4 + 0.508TM5 + 0.186TM7
0.285TM1 0.244TM2 0.544TM3 +
0.704TM4 + 0.084TM5 0.180TM7
(TM4 TM3)/(TM4 + TM3)
(TM4 +TM5TM2TM3)/(TM4+TM5+TM2+TM3)
(TM4+TM2TM5TM7)/(TM4+TM2+TM5+TM7)
(2 TM4 TM5 TM7)/(TM4 + TM5 + TM7)

TC1
TC2
FIG. 1 LOCATION OF THE STUDY AREA

Materials and Methodology of The Study

In this present study, LANDSAT TM digital data (P/R
138/04) was used which has been processed in the
TNT mips Pro environment. Conventionally, it is seen
that in case of LANDSAT TM digital data for digital
classification 4-3-2 band combination is used to get the
Standard False Colour Combination. But sometimes
using this combination, the spectral self similarity of
the objects results is inaccurate in the classification. So
if an optimum band combination can be selected, that
kind of happening can be avoided. In the present
study for classifying the image ecologically, seven
types of VIs (table: 1) like Perpendicular Vegetation
Index 1(PVI1); Tasseled cap Transformation Index 1, 2
(TCT 1,2); Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
(NDVI); Landsat TM band 4,5-2,3, 4,2-5,7,and 4-5,7
related Indices have been calculated and those indices
have been considered as individual bands. From those
indices each, firstly some general statistics like S.D.
and Mean have been calculated (table: 2) and then a
correlation coefficient matrix has been generated (table:
3). After these approaches, mathematical combination
concept has been used to get different combinations
like 1-2-3, 2-1-3, 3-2-1 etc. For these combinations,
lastly, the OIF has been calculated to get the best
combination (table: 4). The OIF can be calculated using
the following formula:

NDVI
45_23
42_57
4_57

TABLE 2 GENERAL STATISTICS OF SELECTED RASTERS

sl no
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

index
pvi1
tc2
tc1
ndvi
45_23
42_57
4_57

sd
6.93749
4.00115
6.61635
0.107335
0.0912387
0.0902415
0.160982

Mean
52.0341
12.6509
86.3202
0.376318
0.238147
0.296068
0.634766

TABLE 3 CORRELARION MATRIX OF SELECTED RASTERS

VIs
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

1
1
-0.93
-0.74
0.21
-0.17
0.97
0.46

2
-0.93
1
0.79
-0.27
0.09
-0.91
-0.85

3
-0.74
0.79
1
0.17
0.50
-0.71
-0.50

4
0.21
-0.27
0.17
1
0.91
0.26
0.60

5
-0.17
0.09
0.50
0.91
1
-0.13
0.24

6
0.97
-0.91
-0.71
0.26
-0.13
1
0.92

7
0.46
-0.85
-0.50
0.60
0.24
0.92
1

Result and Discussion

The products of vegetation vis-s-vis forest cover
mapping derived from remote sensed images should
be objectively verified and communicated to users so
that they can make informed decisions on whether
and how the products can be used. Result evaluation,
a procedure also called accuracy assessment, is often
employed to determine the degree of correctness of
57

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International Journal of Remote Sensing Applications Volume 4 Issue 1, March 2014

the classified vegetation groups compared to the

actual ones. A land cover map (ecologically classified)
derived from image classification is considered
accurate if it provides a true representation of the
region it portrays. Four significant stages have been
witnessed in accuracy assessment methods (Congalton
1994). Accuracy assessment in the first stage was done
by visual inspection of derived maps. This method is
deemed to be highly subjective and often not accurate.
The second stage used a more objective method by
which comparisions of the area extents of the classes
in the derived thematic maps (e.g. the percentage of a
specific vegetation group in area) were made with the
corresponding extents on ground or in other reference
dataset. However, there is a major problem with this
non-site-specific
approach
since
the
correct
proportions of vegetation groups do not necessarily
mean the correct locations at which they locate. In the
third stage, the accuracy metrics were built on a
comparison of the class labels in the thematic map
with the ground data for the same locations. Measures
such as the percentages of cases correctly (and
wrongly) classified were used to evaluate the
classification accuracy. The accuracy assessment at the
fourth stage made further refinements on the basis of
the third stage. The obvious characteristic of this stage
is the wide use of the confusion or error matrix, which
describes the fitness between the derived classes and
the reference data through using the measures like
overall accuracy and kappa coefficient. Additionally, a
variety of other measures is also available or can be
derived from the error matrix.
TABLE 4 WORKSHEET FOR CALCULATING

Combinations(according to sl.no)
321
421
431
432
521
531
532
541
542
543
721
731
732
741
742
743
751
752
753
754
426

58

sd
17.55
11.04
13.66
10.72
11.02
13.64
10.70
7.13
4.19
6.81
11.09
13.71
10.77
7.20
4.26
6.88
7.18
4.25
6.86
0.35
4.19

Using the best combinations of vegetation indices on

the basis of MXL classifier after classification, five
ecological compartments were acquired(figure 2). The
basic aim of this OIF based indices oriented
classification is to get the discrimination between
mangrove and salt marsh species. As per the principle
of OIF, the combination 7-5-3 (4_57-45_23-tc1) has
been selected for having high sd and r ratio value
i.e. 28.09433603 (table: 4). High OIF values indicate
bands (informational rasters i.e. the vegetation indices
in the present study) that contain much "information"
(e.g. high standard deviation) with little "duplication"
(e.g. low correlation between the bands or
informational rasters) by which it is easier to
discriminate the near spectral similarities that are
obvious in general classification using arbitrary band
combinations. By using the OIF method, three band
(informational rasters) colour composites can be
evaluated on their effectiveness for display.

OIF

r OIF=(sd/r)
-0.88
-19.86
-0.99
-11.14
-0.35
-38.57
0.69
15.47
-1.01
-10.84
-0.42
-32.03
1.39
7.70
0.95
7.48
0.73
5.74
1.58
4.28
-1.31
-8.45
-0.77
-17.62
-0.55
-19.39
1.29
5.581
-0.52
-8.13
0.27
24.85
0.53
13.42
-0.51
-8.32
0.24
28.09
1.76
0.20
-0.92
-4.51

FIG. 2 DIGITAL CLASSIFICATION OF ECOLOGICAL

COMPARTMENTS

Table 5 represents the result of supervised

classification from OIF based best combination. The
Khat statistics indicates substantial agreement by a

International Journal of Remote Sensing Applications Volume 4 Issue 1, March 2014

value of 97.55 percent and overall accuracy with 98.18

percent. In this classification, all the classes have
shown the balanced producers and users accuracy.
TABLE 5 ERROR MATRIX

Name
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
Total U. A.
C1
1747
5
0
0
0
1752 99.71%
C2
18
697
26
0
0
741 94.06%
C3
0
11
708
9
0
728 97.25%
C4
0
0
8
924
6
938 98.51%
C5
0
0
0
4
530
534 99.25%
Total
1765
713
742
937
536
4693 99.71%
P. A. 98.98% 96.76% 95.42% 98.61% 98.88% 1752 94.06%
Overall Accuracy = 98.15%
Khat Statistics = 97.55%

In this table 5 C1, C2....... C5 is the land cover classes,

T1, T2......... T5 is the training sites for the land cover
classes, U.A. is the users accuracy and P.A. is the
producers accuracy.
Conclusion
For any kind of environmental applications from
remote sensing digital dataset, band selection is an
important issue. The band selection technique is of
two types: statistical band selection and target
oriented band selection technique. In this present
study, those two approaches have been combined,
from which the target spectral signature relevant
spectral ranges have been localized firstly and after
that the most informative three band groups have
been selected for colour composition by applying
statistical technique and by this the final objective of
deriving the ecological classes was successfully
derived. The OIF is an important statistical technique
to select the low correlation band combination having
much information. In this present study, the
combination having the OIF value of 28.09433603 has
been selected to avoid the spectral self similarity vis-vis for ecological classification and using this best
combination, after classifying the composite 98.15%
overall accuracy has been derived. After all, it can be
said that this method can be successfully used and
there is chance to have class similarity by
mathematically removing the natural fuzziness.
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Paul, Ashis Kr,Coastal Geomorphology and Environment
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Coastal

Plain,

Kanthi

Coastal

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Subarnarekha Delta Plain. ACB Publications, P757 Block

A, Lake Town, Kolkata 89
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RATNADEEP RAY has received M.sc Degree in Remote
Sensing and GIS from Vidyasagar University, Midnapore
(West), West Bengal. Now he is doing Ph.D research work
and engaged in teaching in department of Remote Sensing
and GIS, Vidyasagar University. Mr. Ray has published
several research articles in international journals and a book

59

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International Journal of Remote Sensing Applications Volume 4 Issue 1, March 2014

named An introduction to Photogrammetry on behalf of

Mitram Publication, Kolkata. Mr. Ray may be reached at the
e-mail id ratnadiprsgis@gmai.com.
DR. ASHIS KR. PAUL has received M.A. degree in
geography from University of Calcutta and Ph.D. degree
from the same university. He is an eminent Coastal scientist.
He has published ample amount of research articles on
coastal geomorphology and environment in different
national and international journals and published an
important book on coastal geomorphology named Coastal
geomorphology and Environment on behalf of ACB
publication, Kolkata. He can be reached in akpaul_

60

geo2007@yahoo.co.in.
DR. BALEN BASU has received his M.Sc. Tech degree from
ISM, Dhanbad in Geo-Physics, and Ph.D. degree from
department of Geology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He
has a great expertise in the field of Remote Sensing and GIS.
Now he is the visiting faculty of department of geology and
oceanography, Jadavpur University, Kolkata and the CEO of
OPSIS SYSTEM, Kolkata, which deals with Remote Sensing
and GIS related software and products. He has ample
amount of national and international publications on
Remote Sensing and GIS and Geo-Physics. He can be
reached at balenbasu@gmail.com.