Land cover describes the surface of the earth. Land-cover maps are useful in urban planning, resource management, change detection, agriculture, and a variety of other applications in which information related to the earth's surface is required. Land-cover classification is a complex exercise and is hard to capture using traditional means. Deep learning models are highly capable of learning these complex semantics and can produce better results.
There are a few public datasets for land cover, but the spatial and temporal coverage of these public datasets might not always satisfy the user's requirements. It is also difficult to create datasets for a specific time, as it requires expertise and time. Use this deep learning model to automate the tedious manual process and reduce the required time and effort, significantly.
License requirements
To complete this workflow, the following are the license requirements:
- ArcGIS Desktop—ArcGIS Image Analyst extension for ArcGIS Pro
- ArcGIS Enterprise—ArcGIS Image Server with raster analytics configured
- ArcGIS Online—ArcGIS Pro or Professional Plus user type
Model details
This model has the following characteristics:
- Input—Raster, mosaic dataset, or image service.
- Output—A classified raster with the same classes as in the Chesapeake Bay Land Cover 7 class 2013/2014 dataset. Find class descriptions on the Chesapeake Conservancy website.
- Compute—This workflow is compute intensive, and a GPU with minimum CUDA compute capability of 6.0 is recommended.
- Applicable geographies—This model is applicable in the United States and is expected to produce best results in the Chesapeake Bay region.
- Architecture—This model uses the unet model architecture implemented in ArcGIS API for Python.
- Accuracy metrics—This model has an accuracy of 87.86 percent.
Access and download the model
Download the High Resolution Land Cover Classification - USA pretrained model from ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World. Alternatively, access the model directly from ArcGIS Pro, or consume it in ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online.
- Browse to ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.
- Sign in with your ArcGIS Online credentials.
- Search for High Resolution Land Cover Classification — USA and open the item page from the search results.
- Click the Download button to download the model.
You can use the downloaded .dlpk file directly in ArcGIS Pro, or upload and use it in ArcGIS Enterprise. Additionally, you can fine-tune the pretrained model if necessary.
Release notes
The following are the release notes:
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| January 2022 | First release of High Resolution Land Cover Classification—USA |