Desert Ecosystem Engineering

Desert Ecosystem Engineering

A Comparison of Wavelet Feature-Based Minimum Distance and Rule-Based Fuzzy System for Classifying Medium-Resolution Images in Heterogeneous Landscapes

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Elahe Akbari 1
Mostafa Dastorani 2
Hadi Soleimani Moghadam 3
1 Department of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System, Faculty of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran.
2 Department of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System, Faculty of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran
3 Department of Geography and Urban Planning, Faculty of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran.
10.22052/deej.2026.258032.1129
Abstract
Classification and labeling of satellite images in remote sensing (RS), as well as improvement in their classification accuracy, have received researchers' attention for decades. The present study compares two classification methods—namely, the Rule-Based Fuzzy System and the proposed Wavelet Feature-Based Minimum Distance (W-F-M-D) algorithm—for medium-resolution images, particularly in heterogeneous landscapes. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) was studied in an area located in southwestern Tehran, Iran. For validation, the land cover map obtained from both methods was compared with ground truth data through confusion matrix analysis, Kappa coefficient, and overall accuracy. The best results for the W-F-M-D algorithm were achieved with an overall accuracy of 93.55% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.89. Meanwhile, the results obtained from the fuzzy method were also satisfactory, with an overall accuracy of 89.27% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.84. However, the simplicity and speed of the proposed W-F-M-D algorithm constitute an additional advantage over the fuzzy method. From a different perspective, in the heterogeneous urban-agricultural area with moderate spatial resolution, the accuracy obtained for the urban area map—compared to that of bare lands—using the W-F-M-D method was evaluated as satisfactory, with producer's accuracy of 99.25% and user's accuracy of 91.67%.
Keywords
Wavelet
Feature extraction
Rule-Based Fuzzy System
Classification
medium Resolution
Subjects
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Desert Ecosystem Engineering
Volume 15, Issue 50
Spring 2026
Pages 51-64