{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,10]],"date-time":"2026-01-10T07:19:59Z","timestamp":1768029599873,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":49,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"12","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,12,19]],"date-time":"2018-12-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1545177600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Hong Kong Research Grants Council","award":["CUHK14300815"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["CUHK14300815"]}]},{"name":"CUHK Direct Grant for Research","award":["4053206, 4053282"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["4053206, 4053282"]}]},{"name":"the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences","award":["XDA19070204"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["XDA19070204"]}]},{"name":"Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences","award":["QYZDB\u2013SSW\u2013DQC027"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["QYZDB\u2013SSW\u2013DQC027"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Thawing of ice-rich permafrost causes thermokarst landforms on the ground surface. Obtaining the distribution of thermokarst landforms is a prerequisite for understanding permafrost degradation and carbon exchange at local and regional scales. However, because of their diverse types and characteristics, it is challenging to map thermokarst landforms from remote sensing images. We conducted a case study towards automatically mapping a type of thermokarst landforms (i.e., thermo-erosion gullies) in a local area in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau from high-resolution images by the use of deep learning. In particular, we applied the DeepLab algorithm (based on Convolutional Neural Networks) to a 0.15-m-resolution Digital Orthophoto Map (created using aerial photographs taken by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). Here, we document the detailed processing flow with key steps including preparing training data, fine-tuning, inference, and post-processing. Validating against the field measurements and manual digitizing results, we obtained an F1 score of 0.74 (precision is 0.59 and recall is 1.0), showing that the proposed method can effectively map small and irregular thermokarst landforms. It is potentially viable to apply the designed method to mapping diverse thermokarst landforms in a larger area where high-resolution images and training data are available.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs10122067","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,12,19]],"date-time":"2018-12-19T12:12:44Z","timestamp":1545221564000},"page":"2067","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":61,"title":["Automatic Mapping of Thermokarst Landforms from Remote Sensing Images Using Deep Learning: A Case Study in the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"10","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3072-7334","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Lingcao","family":"Huang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Earth System Science Programme, Faculty of Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9581-1337","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Lin","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Earth System Science Programme, Faculty of Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China"}]},{"given":"Liming","family":"Jiang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Geodesy and Earth\u2019s Dynamics, Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430077, China"},{"name":"University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China"}]},{"given":"Tingjun","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of West China\u2019s Environment (DOE), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China"},{"name":"University Cooperation for Polar Research (UCPR), Beijing 100875, China"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,12,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"132","DOI":"10.1080\/10889379909377670","article-title":"Statistics and characteristics of permafrost and ground-ice distribution in the Northern Hemisphere 1","volume":"23","author":"Zhang","year":"1999","journal-title":"Polar Geogr."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"311","DOI":"10.1016\/j.gloplacha.2006.07.023","article-title":"Permafrost warming in the Tien Shan mountains, central Asia","volume":"56","author":"Marchenko","year":"2007","journal-title":"Glob. Planet. Chang."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Osterkamp, T.E. (2007). Characteristics of the recent warming of permafrost in Alaska. J. Geophys. Res. Earth Surf., 112.","DOI":"10.1029\/2006JF000578"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"106","DOI":"10.1002\/ppp.689","article-title":"Permafrost thermal state in the polar Northern Hemisphere during the international polar year 2007\u20132009: A synthesis","volume":"21","author":"Romanovsky","year":"2010","journal-title":"Permafr. Periglac. Process."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"136","DOI":"10.1002\/ppp.683","article-title":"Thermal state of permafrost in Russia","volume":"21","author":"Romanovsky","year":"2010","journal-title":"Permafr. Periglac. Process."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wu, Q., and Zhang, T. (2008). Recent permafrost warming on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 113.","DOI":"10.1029\/2007JD009539"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"198","DOI":"10.1002\/ppp.688","article-title":"Thermal state of permafrost and active layer in Central Asia during the International Polar Year","volume":"21","author":"Zhao","year":"2010","journal-title":"Permafr. Periglac. Process."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"279","DOI":"10.1002\/ppp.626","article-title":"Thawing permafrost and thicker active layers in sub-arctic Sweden","volume":"19","author":"Johansson","year":"2008","journal-title":"Permafr. Periglac. Process."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"103","DOI":"10.1016\/0033-5894(70)90013-X","article-title":"Thermokarst in Siberia and its influence on the development of lowland relief","volume":"1","author":"Czudek","year":"1970","journal-title":"Quat. Res."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2100","DOI":"10.1139\/x05-153","article-title":"Response of boreal ecosystems to varying modes of permafrost degradation","volume":"35","author":"Jorgenson","year":"2005","journal-title":"Can. J. For. Res."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"313","DOI":"10.1016\/B978-0-12-374739-6.00215-3","article-title":"Thermokarst terrains","volume":"8","author":"Jorgenson","year":"2013","journal-title":"Treatise Geomorphol."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7","DOI":"10.1002\/ppp.582","article-title":"Patterns of permafrost formation and degradation in relation to climate and ecosystems","volume":"18","author":"Shur","year":"2007","journal-title":"Permafr. Periglac. Process."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Grosse, G., Harden, J., Turetsky, M., McGuire, A.D., Camill, P., Tarnocai, C., Frolking, S., Schuur, E.A., Jorgenson, T., and Marchenko, S. (2011). Vulnerability of high-latitude soil organic carbon in North America to disturbance. J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci., 116.","DOI":"10.1029\/2010JG001507"},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"13043","DOI":"10.1038\/ncomms13043","article-title":"Circumpolar distribution and carbon storage of thermokarst landscapes","volume":"7","author":"Olefeldt","year":"2016","journal-title":"Nat. Commun."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"171","DOI":"10.1038\/nature14338","article-title":"Climate change and the permafrost carbon feedback","volume":"520","author":"Schuur","year":"2015","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Tarnocai, C., Canadell, J.G., Schuur, E., Kuhry, P., Mazhitova, G., and Zimov, S. (2009). Soil organic carbon pools in the northern circumpolar permafrost region. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles, 23.","DOI":"10.1029\/2008GB003327"},{"key":"ref_17","unstructured":"Jorgenson, M.T., Yoshikawa, K., Kanevskiy, M., Shur, Y., Romanovsky, V., Marchenko, S., Grosse, G., Brown, J., and Jones, B. (July, January 20). Permafrost characteristics of Alaska. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Permafrost, Fairbanks, AK, USA."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"229","DOI":"10.1002\/ppp.595","article-title":"Observation of Rapid Drainage System Development by Thermal Erosion of Ice Wedges on Bylot Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago","volume":"18","author":"Fortier","year":"2007","journal-title":"Permafr. Periglac. Process."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"556","DOI":"10.1007\/s11434-015-0730-2","article-title":"Thermokarst lake changes between 1969 and 2010 in the Beilu River Basin, Qinghai\u2013Tibet Plateau, China","volume":"60","author":"Luo","year":"2015","journal-title":"Sci. Bull."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"5631","DOI":"10.1007\/s12665-014-3818-0","article-title":"Assessment of terrain susceptibility to thermokarst lake development along the Qinghai\u2013Tibet engineering corridor, China","volume":"73","author":"Niu","year":"2015","journal-title":"Environ. Earth Sci."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1619","DOI":"10.1002\/2017JF004231","article-title":"Terrain controls on the occurrence of coastal retrogressive thaw slumps along the Yukon Coast, Canada","volume":"122","author":"Ramage","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res. Earth Surf."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"27","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2016.03.038","article-title":"Detection of landscape dynamics in the Arctic Lena Delta with temporally dense Landsat time-series stacks","volume":"181","author":"Nitze","year":"2016","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nitze, I., Grosse, G., Jones, B.M., Arp, C.D., Ulrich, M., Fedorov, A., and Veremeeva, A. (2017). Landsat-based trend analysis of lake dynamics across northern permafrost regions. Remote Sens., 9.","DOI":"10.3390\/rs9070640"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"40","DOI":"10.1016\/j.geomorph.2015.01.024","article-title":"Distribution and growth of thaw slumps in the Richardson Mountains\u2013Peel Plateau region, northwestern Canada","volume":"235","author":"Lacelle","year":"2015","journal-title":"Geomorphology"},{"key":"ref_25","unstructured":"Godin, E., and Fortier, D. (2010, January 12\u201316). Geomorphology of thermo-erosion gullies\u2013case study from Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada. Proceedings of the 6th Canadian Permafrost Conference and 63rd Canadian Geotechnical Conference, Calgary, AB, Canada."},{"key":"ref_26","unstructured":"Godin, E., and Fortier, D. (2012, January 25\u201329). Fine Scale Spatio-Temporal Monitoring of Multiple Thermo-Erosion Gullies Development on Bylot Island, Eastern Canadian Archipelago. Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Permafrost (TICOP), Salekhard, Russia."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"035016","DOI":"10.1088\/1748-9326\/8\/3\/035016","article-title":"Quantification of upland thermokarst features with high resolution remote sensing","volume":"8","author":"Belshe","year":"2013","journal-title":"Environ. Res. Lett."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"37","DOI":"10.1016\/j.coldregions.2012.12.008","article-title":"Identifying permafrost slope disturbance using multi-temporal optical satellite images and change detection techniques","volume":"88","author":"Rudy","year":"2013","journal-title":"Cold Reg. Sci. Technol."},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2278","DOI":"10.1109\/5.726791","article-title":"Gradient-based learning applied to document recognition","volume":"86","author":"LeCun","year":"1998","journal-title":"Proc. IEEE"},{"key":"ref_30","unstructured":"Krizhevsky, A., Sutskever, I., and Hinton, G.E. (2012, January 3\u20138). Imagenet classification with deep convolutional neural networks. Proceedings of the Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, Lake Tahoe, NY, USA."},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"436","DOI":"10.1038\/nature14539","article-title":"Deep learning","volume":"521","author":"LeCun","year":"2015","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"354","DOI":"10.1038\/nature24270","article-title":"Mastering the game of Go without human knowledge","volume":"550","author":"Silver","year":"2017","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Guo, W., Yang, W., Zhang, H., and Hua, G. (2018). Geospatial Object Detection in High Resolution Satellite Images Based on Multi-Scale Convolutional Neural Network. Remote Sens., 10.","DOI":"10.3390\/rs10010131"},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"73","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2018.04.050","article-title":"Urban land-use mapping using a deep convolutional neural network with high spatial resolution multispectral remote sensing imagery","volume":"214","author":"Huang","year":"2018","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"790","DOI":"10.1126\/science.aaf7894","article-title":"Combining satellite imagery and machine learning to predict poverty","volume":"353","author":"Jean","year":"2016","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"8","DOI":"10.1109\/MGRS.2017.2762307","article-title":"Deep Learning in Remote Sensing: A Comprehensive Review and List of Resources","volume":"5","author":"Zhu","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Mag."},{"key":"ref_37","first-page":"1","article-title":"Study of the organic carbon storage in the active layer of the permafrost over the Eboling Mountain in the upper reaches of the Heihe River in the Eastern Qilian Mountains","volume":"35","author":"Mu","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Glaciol. Geocryol."},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"203","DOI":"10.1657\/AAAR00C-13-095","article-title":"Carbon and nitrogen properties of permafrost over the Eboling Mountain in the upper reach of Heihe River basin, Northwestern China","volume":"47","author":"Mu","year":"2015","journal-title":"Arct. Antarct. Alpine Res."},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9389","DOI":"10.1002\/2017GL075067","article-title":"Thaw Depth Determines Dissolved Organic Carbon Concentration and Biodegradability on the Northern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau","volume":"44","author":"Mu","year":"2017","journal-title":"Geophys. Res. Lett."},{"key":"ref_40","first-page":"19","article-title":"Investigation on permafrost distribution over the upper reaches of the Heihe River in the Qilian Mountains","volume":"35","author":"Wang","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Glaciol. Geocryol."},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"574","DOI":"10.1002\/2016JF004018","article-title":"Spatial variability of active layer thickness detected by ground-penetrating radar in the Qilian Mountains, Western China","volume":"122","author":"Cao","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res. Earth Surf."},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7935","DOI":"10.1029\/2018JD028442","article-title":"Thermal Characteristics and Recent Changes of Permafrost in the Upper Reaches of the Heihe River Basin, Western China","volume":"123","author":"Cao","year":"2018","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res. Atmos."},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1781","DOI":"10.1002\/2015JG003235","article-title":"Carbon loss and chemical changes from permafrost collapse in the northern Tibetan Plateau","volume":"121","author":"Mu","year":"2016","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci."},{"key":"ref_44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"98","DOI":"10.1007\/s11263-014-0733-5","article-title":"The pascal visual object classes challenge: A retrospective","volume":"111","author":"Everingham","year":"2015","journal-title":"Int. J. Comput. Vis."},{"key":"ref_45","unstructured":"Chen, L.C., Papandreou, G., Kokkinos, I., Murphy, K., and Yuille, A.L. (arXiv, 2016). Deeplab: Semantic image segmentation with deep convolutional nets, atrous convolution, and fully connected crfs, arXiv."},{"key":"ref_46","unstructured":"Goodfellow, I., Bengio, Y., Courville, A., and Bengio, Y. (2016). Deep Learning, MIT Press."},{"key":"ref_47","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"20","DOI":"10.1038\/538020a","article-title":"Can we open the black box of AI?","volume":"538","author":"Castelvecchi","year":"2016","journal-title":"Nat. News"},{"key":"ref_48","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zeiler, M.D., and Fergus, R. (2014, January 6\u201312). Visualizing and understanding convolutional networks. Proceedings of the European conference on computer vision, Zurich, Switzerland.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-10590-1_53"},{"key":"ref_49","unstructured":"Council, N.R. (2014). Opportunities to Use Remote Sensing in Understanding Permafrost and Related Ecological Characteristics: Report of a Workshop, National Academies Press."}],"container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/10\/12\/2067\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T15:34:56Z","timestamp":1760196896000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/10\/12\/2067"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2018,12,19]]},"references-count":49,"journal-issue":{"issue":"12","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,12]]}},"alternative-id":["rs10122067"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/rs10122067","relation":{},"ISSN":["2072-4292"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2072-4292","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2018,12,19]]}}}