An Optimized Workflow for Digital Surface Model Series Generation Based on Historical Aerial Images: Testing and Quality Assessment in the Beach-Dune System of Sa Ràpita-Es Trenc (Mallorca, Spain)

Abstract

We propose an optimized Structure-from-Motion (SfM) Multi-View Stereopsis (MVS) workflow, based on minimizing different errors and inaccuracies of historical aerial photograph series (1945, 1979, 1984, and 2008 surveys), prior to generation of elevation-calibrated historical Digital Surface Models (hDSM) at 1 m resolution. We applied LiDAR techniques on Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) point clouds (Spanish PNOA LiDAR flights of 2014 and 2019) for comparison and validation purposes. Implementation of these products in multi-temporal analysis requires quality control due to the diversity of sources and technologies involved. To accomplish this, (i) we used the Mean Absolute Error (MAE) between GNSS-Validation Points and the elevations observed by DSM-ALS to evaluate the elevation accuracy of DSM-ALS generated with the LAScatalog processing engine; (ii) optimization of the SfM sparse clouds in the georeferencing step was evaluated by calculating the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) between the Check Points extracted from DSM-ALS and the predicted elevations per sparse cloud; (iii) the MVS clouds were evaluated by calculating the MAE between ALS-Validation Points and the predicted elevations per MVS cloud; iv) the accuracy of the resulting historical SfM-MVS DSMs were assessed using the MAE between ALS-Validation Points and the observed elevations per historical DSM; and (v) we implemented a calibration method based on a linear correction to reduce the elevation discrepancies between historical DSMs and the DSM-ALS 2019 reference elevations. This optimized workflow can generate high-resolution (1 m pixel size) hDSMs with reasonable accuracy: MAE in z ranges from 0.41 m (2008 DSM) to 5.21 m (1945 DSM). Overall, hDSMs generated using historical images have great potential for geo-environmental processes monitoring in different ecosystems and, in some cases (i.e., sufficient image overlapping and quality), being an acceptable replacement for LiDAR data when it is not available.