Skip To Content

Perform image change detection

Change on the earth's surface can occur because of human activity, abrupt natural disturbances, or long-term climatological or environmental trends. Detecting that change is one of the fundamental applications in imagery and remote sensing. Change detection is the comparison of multiple raster datasets, typically collected for one area at different times, to determine the type, magnitude, and location of change. This can take the form of image-to-image change detection, or change detected across a stack of images or time series of images.

ArcGIS provides a variety of tools to perform change detection. The Change Detection toolset in ArcGIS Pro contains tools that perform change detection between raster datasets. ArcGIS Pro also includes the Change Detection Wizard, which combines tools and functions to guide you through three possible change detection workflows:

  • Categorical change, which identifies the type of change between two thematic or categorical rasters, such as land cover
  • Pixel-value change, which calculates the difference in pixel values between two continuous rasters, such as temperature rasters or multiband imagery
  • Time-series change, which identifies the date of change in a time series of images using either the Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC) method or the Landsat-based Detection of Trends in Disturbance and Recovery (LandTrendr) method

Change detection can also be scaled up using distributed processing with ArcGIS Enterprise and ArcGIS Image Server.

Explore the following resources to learn more about change detection in ArcGIS.

Note:

To work with the Change Detection Wizard and tools and raster functions in ArcGIS Pro, you need ArcGIS Image Analyst. To work with the change detection tools through ArcGIS REST API or ArcGIS Enterprise, you need ArcGIS Image Server.

ArcGIS help

Review the following links on reference materials for ArcGIS products:

ArcGIS blogs, articles, story maps, and technical papers

Review the following supplemental guidance about concepts, software functionality, and workflows:

Videos

Review the following Esri-produced videos that clarify and demonstrate concepts, software functionality, and workflows:

Training and tutorials

Review the following guided lessons and tutorials based on real-world problems and key ArcGIS skills:

Developer resources

Review the following resources and support for automating and customizing workflows:

Esri Community

Use the online imagery community to connect, collaborate, and share experiences: