Object-based Image Analysis Using Very High-resolution Satellite Data

Under the Additional Protocol of the Nonproliferation Treaty(NPT), complementing the safeguards agreements between statesand the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), commercialsatellite imagery is an important source of information withinthe “information-driven safeguards” approach of the IAEA. TheIAEA faces the challenge of a steadily increasing number of nuclearfacilities worldwide and therefore (semi-) automated andcomputer-driven methodologies can add a big value in the verificationprocess. With regard to satellite imagery, a large number ofnew commercial optical and SAR sensors with higher resolution,shorter revisiting time, more spectral bands, multiple polarizations,etc., have become available. Another challenge of the IAEAis to stay on top of these new technologies and to use them effectivelyand efficiently for nuclear verification.With the advances in satellite sensor technologies as tospatial resolution, the concept of object-based image analysis(OBIA) has been become widely used in different remotesensing applications. By presenting some developments of OBIAalgorithms and procedures, our paper aims to highlight theadvantages of applying OBIA approaches for nuclear verification.In detail, procedures for object-based change detection, objectbasedclassification, and geoinformation system (GIS) integrationare demonstrated.