• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.89-99
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• 2018

Spatial downscaling is often applied to coarse scale satellite products with high temporal resolution for environmental monitoring at a finer scale. An area-to-point regression kriging (ATPRK) algorithm is regarded as effective in that it combines regression modeling and residual correction with area-to-point kriging. However, an open source tool or package for ATPRK has not yet been developed. This paper describes the development and code organization of an R-based spatial downscaling tool, named R4ATPRK, for the implementation of ATPRK. R4ATPRK was developed using the R language and several R packages. A look-up table search and batch processing for computation of ATP kriging weights are employed to improve computational efficiency. An experiment on spatial downscaling of coarse scale land surface temperature products demonstrated that this tool could generate downscaling results in which overall variations in input coarse scale data were preserved and local details were also well captured. If computational efficiency can be further improved, and the tool is extended to include certain advanced procedures, R4ATPRK would be an effective tool for spatial downscaling of coarse scale satellite products.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.5_1
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• pp.523-533
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• 2022

This paper presents a two-stage spatio-spectral fusion method (2SSFM) based on area-to-point regression kriging (ATPRK) to enhance spatial and spectral resolutions using multi-sensor satellite images with complementary spatial and spectral resolutions. 2SSFM combines ATPRK and random forest regression to predict spectral bands at high spatial resolution from multi-sensor satellite images. In the first stage, ATPRK-based spatial down scaling is performed to reduce the differences in spatial resolution between multi-sensor satellite images. In the second stage, regression modeling using random forest is then applied to quantify the relationship of spectral bands between multi-sensor satellite images. The prediction performance of 2SSFM was evaluated through a case study of the generation of red-edge and short-wave infrared bands. The red-edge and short-wave infrared bands of PlanetScope images were predicted from Sentinel-2 images using 2SSFM. From the case study, 2SSFM could generate red-edge and short-wave infrared bands with improved spatial resolution and similar spectral patterns to the actual spectral bands, which confirms the feasibility of 2SSFM for the generation of spectral bands not provided in high spatial resolution satellite images. Thus, 2SSFM can be applied to generate various spectral indices using the predicted spectral bands that are actually unavailable but effective for environmental monitoring.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.445-454
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• 2017

The performance of spatial downscaling models depends on the quality of input coarse scale products. Thus, the impact of intrinsic errors contained in coarse scale satellite products on predictive performance should be properly assessed in parallel with the development of advanced downscaling models. Such an assessment is the main objective of this paper. Based on a synthetic satellite precipitation product at a coarse scale generated from rain gauge data, two synthetic precipitation products with different amounts of error were generated and used as inputs for spatial downscaling. Geographically weighted regression, which typically has very high explanatory power, was selected as the trend component estimation model, and area-to-point kriging was applied for residual correction in the spatial downscaling experiment. When errors in the coarse scale product were greater, the trend component estimates were much more susceptible to errors. But residual correction could reduce the impact of the erroneous trend component estimates, which improved the predictive performance. However, residual correction could not improve predictive performance significantly when substantial errors were contained in the input coarse scale data. Therefore, the development of advanced spatial downscaling models should be focused on correction of intrinsic errors in the coarse scale satellite product if a priori error information could be available, rather than on the application of advanced regression models with high explanatory power.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.25-35
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• 2017

Spatial downscaling with fine resolution auxiliary variables has been widely applied to predict precipitation at fine resolution from coarse resolution satellite-based precipitation products. The spatial downscaling framework is usually based on the decomposition of precipitation values into trend and residual components. The fine resolution auxiliary variables contribute to the estimation of the trend components. The main focus of this study is on quantitative analysis of impacts of trend component estimates on predictive performance in spatial downscaling. Two regression models were considered to estimate the trend components: multiple linear regression (MLR) and geographically weighted regression (GWR). After estimating the trend components using the two models,residual components were predicted at fine resolution grids using area-to-point kriging. Finally, the sum of the trend and residual components were considered as downscaling results. From the downscaling experiments with time-series Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B43 precipitation data, MLR-based downscaling showed the similar or even better predictive performance, compared with GWR-based downscaling with very high explanatory power. Despite very high explanatory power of GWR, the relationships quantified from TRMM precipitation data with errors and the auxiliary variables at coarse resolution may exaggerate the errors in the trend components at fine resolution. As a result, the errors attached to the trend estimates greatly affected the predictive performance. These results indicate that any regression model with high explanatory power does not always improve predictive performance due to intrinsic errors of the input coarse resolution data. Thus, it is suggested that the explanatory power of trend estimation models alone cannot be always used for the selection of an optimal model in spatial downscaling with fine resolution auxiliary variables.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.587-607
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• 2020

Soil moisture is essential information for meteorological and hydrological analyses. To date, many efforts have been made to achieve the two goals for soil moisture data, i.e., the improvement of accuracy and resolution, which is very challenging. We presented an ensemble downscaling method for quality improvement of gridded soil moisture data in terms of the accuracy and the spatial resolution by the integration of BMA (Bayesian model averaging) and ATPRK (area-to-point regression kriging). In the experiments, the BMA ensemble showed a 22% better accuracy than the data sets from ESA CCI (European Space Agency-Climate Change Initiative), ERA5 (ECMWF Reanalysis 5), and GLDAS (Global Land Data Assimilation System) in terms of RMSE (root mean square error). Also, the ATPRK downscaling could enhance the spatial resolution from 0.25° to 0.05° while preserving the improved accuracy and the spatial pattern of the BMA ensemble, without under- or over-estimation. The quality-improved data sets can contribute to a variety of local and regional applications related to soil moisture, such as agriculture, forest, hydrology, and meteorology. Because the ensemble downscaling method can be applied to the other land surface variables such as temperature, humidity, precipitation, and evapotranspiration, it can be a viable option to complement the accuracy and the spatial resolution of satellite images and numerical models.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.118-129
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• 2016

Many epidemiological studies, relying on administrative air pollution monitoring data, have reported the association between particulate matter ($PM_{10}$) air pollution and human health. These monitoring data were collected at a limited number of fixed sites, whereas government-generated health data are aggregated at the area level. To link these two data types for assessing health effects, it is necessary to estimate area-level concentrations of $PM_{10}$. In this study, we estimated district (Gu)-level $PM_{10}$ concentrations using a previously developed pointwise exposure prediction model for $PM_{10}$ and three types of point locations in Seoul, Korea. These points included 16,230 centroids of the largest census output residential areas, 422 community service centers, and 610 centroids on the 1km grid. After creating three types of points, we predicted $PM_{10}$ annual average concentrations at all locations and calculated Gu averages of predicted $PM_{10}$ concentrations as representative Gu-estimates. Then, we compared estimates to each other and to measurements. Prediction-based Gu-level estimates showed higher correlations with measurement-based estimates as prediction locations became more population representative ($R^2=0.06-0.59$). Among the three estimates, grid-based estimates gave lowest correlations compared to the other two(0.35-0.47). This study provides an approach for estimating area-level air pollution concentrations and assesses air pollution health effects using national-scale administrative health data.