One RS Image-registration Method in Rapidly Changing Areas: The Modern Yellow River Delta as a Case Study

摘要

It is well known to the geographic information system (GIS) andremote sensing (RS) scientists that it is difficult to carry out the RSimage-registration in areas where is absent of both enough culturalfeatures for ground control points (GCPs) and topographic maps. Here,we summarized an image-to-image registration method with themultitemporal RS imagery of Landsat MSS and TM, which covered themodern Yellow River Delta. The Yellow River huge sediment flux andfrequent shifts of the flowing route entering the sea have rapidlyformed the modern Yellow River Delta. Due to most areas of the deltaare composed of saline-alkali soil, the agriculture, industry and trafficdeveloped very slowly before the early 1990s. Further, there wereabsent of both obvious features of geomorphology and landscape andenough topographic maps before the early 1990s. These conditionsbring about great difficulty in the process of RS image-registrationbefore the early 1990s. The successful application of the image-toimageregistration summarized in this paper provides scientists anoptional choice for RS-image-registration in rapidly changing areas.