Forest Change Monitoring Based on Block Instance Sampling and Homomorphic Hypothesis Margin Evaluation

Forests play a crucial role in maintaining the integrity of natural ecosystems. Accurate mapping of windfall damages following storms is essential for effective post-disaster management. While remote sensing image classification offers substantial advantages over ground surveys for monitoring changes in forests, it encounters several challenges. Firstly, training samples in classification algorithms are typically selected through pixel-based random sampling or manual regional sampling. This approach struggles with accurately modeling complex patterns in high-resolution images and often results in redundant samples. Secondly, the limited availability of labeled samples compromises the classification accuracy when they are divided into training and test sets. To address these issues, two innovative approaches are proposed in this paper. The first is a new sample selection method which combines block-based sampling with spatial features extracted by single or multiple windows. Second, a new evaluation criterion is proposed by using the homomorphic hypothesis margin map with out-of-bag (OOB) accuracy. The former can not only assess the confidence level of each pixel category but also make regional boundaries clearer, and the latter can replace the test set so that all samples can be used for change detection. The experimental results show that the OOB accuracy obtained by spatial features with whole block sampling was 7.2% higher than that obtained by spectral features with pixel-based sampling and 2–3% higher than that for block center sampling, of which the highest value reached 98.8%. Additionally, the feasibility of identifying storm-damaged forests using only post-storm images has been demonstrated.